Voice interaction at a primary device to access call functionality of a companion device

ABSTRACT

The present disclosure generally relates to using voice interaction to access call functionality of a companion device. In an example process, a user utterance is received. Based on the user utterance and contextual information, the process causes a server to determine a user intent corresponding to the user utterance. The contextual information is based on a signal received from the companion device. In accordance with the user intent corresponding to an actionable intent of answering the incoming call, a command is received. Based on the command, instructions are provided to the companion device, which cause the companion device to answer the incoming call and provide audio data of the answered incoming call. Audio is outputted according to the audio data of the answered incoming call.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 16/113,119, filed onAug. 27, 2018, entitled “VOICE INTERACTION AT A PRIMARY DEVICE TO ACCESSCALL FUNCTIONALITY OF A COMPANION DEVICE,” which claims priority fromU.S. Provisional Ser. No. 62/679,177, filed on Jun. 1, 2018, entitled“VOICE INTERACTION AT A PRIMARY DEVICE TO ACCESS CALL FUNCTIONALITY OF ACOMPANION DEVICE.” The content of both applications are herebyincorporated by reference in their entirety for all purposes.

FIELD

This relates generally to intelligent automated assistants and, morespecifically, to using intelligent automated assistants to access callfunctionality of a companion device from a primary device.

BACKGROUND

Intelligent automated assistants (or digital assistants) can provide abeneficial interface between human users and electronic devices. Suchassistants can allow users to interact with devices or systems usingnatural language in spoken and/or text forms. For example, a user canprovide a speech input containing a user request to a digital assistantoperating on an electronic device. The digital assistant can interpretthe user's intent from the speech input and operationalize the user'sintent into tasks. The tasks can then be performed by executing one ormore services of the electronic device, and a relevant output responsiveto the user request can be returned to the user.

SUMMARY

Techniques for using voice interaction at a primary device to accesscall functionality on a companion device are described herein. In oneexemplary technique, voice interaction at a primary device is used tocause a companion device to answer an incoming call. In this technique,a signal is received from the companion device. The signal indicatesthat an incoming call is detected at the companion device. A userutterance is received and a server determines, based on the userutterance and contextual information, a user intent corresponding to theuser utterance. The contextual information is based on the receivedsignal. In accordance with the user intent corresponding to anactionable intent of answering the incoming call, a plurality ofoperations are performed. The plurality of operations include receiving,from the server, a command representing a task to satisfy the actionableintent of answering the incoming call. Additionally, the plurality ofoperations include providing, based on the command, instructions to thecompanion device to answer the incoming call and relay audio data of theanswered incoming call to the electronic device. In accordance with theinstructions successfully causing the companion device to answer theincoming call, audio output at the speaker of the electronic device isoutputted according to the audio data of the answered incoming callreceived from the companion device.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a system and environment forimplementing a digital assistant, according to various examples.

FIG. 2A is a block diagram illustrating a portable multifunction deviceimplementing the client-side portion of a digital assistant, accordingto various examples.

FIG. 2B is a block diagram illustrating exemplary components for eventhandling, according to various examples.

FIG. 3 illustrates a portable multifunction device implementing theclient-side portion of a digital assistant, according to variousexamples.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an exemplary multifunction device with adisplay and a touch-sensitive surface, according to various examples.

FIG. 5A illustrates an exemplary user interface for a menu ofapplications on a portable multifunction device, according to variousexamples.

FIG. 5B illustrates an exemplary user interface for a multifunctiondevice with a touch-sensitive surface that is separate from the display,according to various examples.

FIG. 6A illustrates a personal electronic device, according to variousexamples.

FIG. 6B is a block diagram illustrating a personal electronic device,according to various examples.

FIG. 7A is a block diagram illustrating a digital assistant system or aserver portion thereof, according to various examples.

FIG. 7B illustrates the functions of the digital assistant shown in FIG.7A, according to various examples.

FIG. 7C illustrates a portion of an ontology, according to variousexamples.

FIG. 8 illustrates techniques for using voice interaction at a primarydevice to cause a companion device to place a call, according to variousexamples.

FIG. 9 illustrates techniques for using voice interaction at a primarydevice to cause a companion device to answer an incoming call, accordingto various examples.

FIG. 10 illustrates techniques for using voice interaction at a primarydevice to cause a companion device to perform call-related tasks whilethe companion device is engaged in an active call, according to variousexamples.

FIG. 11 illustrates techniques for using voice interaction at a primarydevice to cause a companion device to provide call-related information,according to various examples.

FIGS. 12A-12B illustrate a process for using voice interaction to accesscall functionality of a companion device, according to various examples.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description of examples, reference is made to theaccompanying drawings in which are shown by way of illustration specificexamples that can be practiced. It is to be understood that otherexamples can be used and structural changes can be made withoutdeparting from the scope of the various examples.

It can be desirable to access call functionality using voiceinteraction. For example, a user sitting in their living room at homemay wish to answer an incoming call on their smartphone (e.g., iPhone®)that was left in the kitchen. Instead of retrieving the smartphone toanswer the call, it can be more convenient to use voice interaction(e.g., via a digital assistant) to answer the call. Directly processinga voice request at the smartphone can, however, be ineffective andunreliable. For example, the microphone and speaker of the smartphonecan be unsuitable for far-field voice interactions (e.g., between thekitchen and the living room). In accordance with the techniquesdescribed herein, a primary device (e.g., smart speaker) can be used toaccess the call functionality of a companion device (e.g., smartphone).For example, a user may have access to a smart speaker (e.g., HomePod®)in their living room. The smart speaker is paired with the user'ssmartphone and thus the smart speaker can wirelessly communicate withthe user's smartphone to access its call functions. It can thus bedesirable to access the call functionality of the smartphone using voiceinteractions with the smart speaker. In particular, the microphone andspeaker of the smart speaker can be configured to produce better soundquality for far-field voice interactions. Moreover, the smart speakercan serve as a hub to more quickly, efficiently, and intelligentlycontrol and coordinate access to the call functionality of thesmartphone. For example, the smart speaker can coordinate informationbetween the user, a digital assistant server, and the user's smartphoneto achieve a desirable user experience where voice interactions areaccurately interpreted, response latency is reduced, and sound qualityis superior.

In one exemplary technique for using voice interaction to access callfunctionality of a companion device (e.g., smartphone), a primary device(e.g., smart speaker) is used to cause the companion device to answer anincoming call. In this technique, a signal indicating the incoming callat the companion device is received at the primary device from thecompanion device. The primary device receives an utterance from a userand causes a server to determine, based on the user utterance andcontextual information, a user intent corresponding to the userutterance. The contextual information is based on the received signal.In accordance with the user intent corresponding to an actionable intentof answering the incoming call, a plurality of operations are performed.The plurality of operations include receiving, from the server, acommand representing a task to satisfy the actionable intent ofanswering the incoming call. The plurality of operations further includeproviding, based on the command, instructions to the companion device toanswer the incoming call and relay audio data of the answered incomingcall to the electronic device. In accordance with the instructionssuccessfully causing the companion device to answer the incoming call,audio output at the speaker of the electronic device is outputtedaccording to the audio data of the answered incoming call received fromthe companion device.

Although the following description uses terms “first,” “second,” etc. todescribe various elements, these elements should not be limited by theterms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element fromanother. For example, a first input could be termed a second input, and,similarly, a second input could be termed a first input, withoutdeparting from the scope of the various described examples. The firstinput and the second input are both inputs and, in some cases, areseparate and different inputs.

The terminology used in the description of the various describedexamples herein is for the purpose of describing particular examplesonly and is not intended to be limiting. As used in the description ofthe various described examples and the appended claims, the singularforms “a,” “an,” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms aswell, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will also beunderstood that the term “and/or” as used herein refers to andencompasses any and all possible combinations of one or more of theassociated listed items. It will be further understood that the terms“includes,” “including,” “comprises,” and/or “comprising,” when used inthis specification, specify the presence of stated features, integers,steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude thepresence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps,operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof.

The term “if” may be construed to mean “when” or “upon” or “in responseto determining” or “in response to detecting,” depending on the context.Similarly, the phrase “if it is determined” or “if [a stated conditionor event] is detected” may be construed to mean “upon determining” or“in response to determining” or “upon detecting [the stated condition orevent]” or “in response to detecting [the stated condition or event],”depending on the context.

1. System and Environment

FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of system 100 according to variousexamples. In some examples, system 100 implements a digital assistant.The terms “digital assistant,” “virtual assistant,” “intelligentautomated assistant,” or “automatic digital assistant” refer to anyinformation processing system that interprets natural language input inspoken and/or textual form to infer user intent, and performs actionsbased on the inferred user intent. For example, to act on an inferreduser intent, the system performs one or more of the following:identifying a task flow with steps and parameters designed to accomplishthe inferred user intent, inputting specific requirements from theinferred user intent into the task flow; executing the task flow byinvoking programs, methods, services, APIs, or the like; and generatingoutput responses to the user in an audible (e.g., speech) and/or visualform.

Specifically, a digital assistant is capable of accepting a user requestat least partially in the form of a natural language command, request,statement, narrative, and/or inquiry. Typically, the user request seekseither an informational answer or performance of a task by the digitalassistant. A satisfactory response to the user request includes aprovision of the requested informational answer, a performance of therequested task, or a combination of the two. For example, a user asksthe digital assistant a question, such as “Where am I right now?” Basedon the user's current location, the digital assistant answers, “You arein Central Park near the west gate.” The user also requests theperformance of a task, for example, “Please invite my friends to mygirlfriend's birthday party next week.” In response, the digitalassistant can acknowledge the request by saying “Yes, right away,” andthen send a suitable calendar invite on behalf of the user to each ofthe user's friends listed in the user's electronic address book. Duringperformance of a requested task, the digital assistant sometimesinteracts with the user in a continuous dialogue involving multipleexchanges of information over an extended period of time. There arenumerous other ways of interacting with a digital assistant to requestinformation or performance of various tasks. In addition to providingverbal responses and taking programmed actions, the digital assistantalso provides responses in other visual or audio forms, e.g., as text,alerts, music, videos, animations, etc.

As shown in FIG. 1, in some examples, a digital assistant is implementedaccording to a client-server model. The digital assistant includesclient-side portions (hereafter “DA client” 102 and 124) executed onuser device 104 and/or second user device 122. The digital assistantalso includes server-side portion 106 (hereafter “DA server 106”)executed on server system 108. DA client 102/124 communicates with DAserver 106 through one or more networks 110. DA client 102/124 providesclient-side functionalities such as user-facing input and outputprocessing and communication with DA server 106. DA server 106 providesserver-side functionalities for any number of DA clients each residingon a respective user device.

In some examples, DA server 106 includes client-facing I/O interface112, one or more processing modules 114, data and models 116, and I/Ointerface to external services 118. The client-facing I/O interface 112facilitates the client-facing input and output processing for DA server106. One or more processing modules 114 utilize data and models 116 toprocess speech input and determine the user's intent based on naturallanguage input. Further, one or more processing modules 114 perform taskexecution based on inferred user intent. In some examples, DA server 106communicates with external services 120 through network(s) 110 for taskcompletion or information acquisition. I/O interface to externalservices 118 facilitates such communications.

User device 104 can be any suitable electronic device. In some examples,user device 104 is a portable multifunctional device (e.g., device 200,described below with reference to FIG. 2A), a multifunctional device(e.g., device 400, described below with reference to FIG. 4), or apersonal electronic device (e.g., device 600, described below withreference to FIG. 6A-6B.) A portable multifunctional device is, forexample, a mobile telephone that also contains other functions, such asPDA and/or music player functions. Specific examples of portablemultifunction devices include the Apple Watch®, iPhone®, iPod Touch®,and iPad® devices from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif. Other examples ofportable multifunction devices include, without limitation,earphones/headphones, speakers, and laptop or tablet computers. Further,in some examples, user device 104 is a non-portable multifunctionaldevice. In particular, user device 104 is a desktop computer, a gameconsole, a speaker (e.g., HomePod®), a television, or a televisionset-top box (AppleTV®). In some examples, user device 104 includes atouch-sensitive surface (e.g., touch screen displays and/or touchpads).Further, user device 104 optionally includes one or more other physicaluser-interface devices, such as a physical keyboard, a mouse, and/or ajoystick. Various examples of electronic devices, such asmultifunctional devices, are described below in greater detail.

Examples of communication network(s) 110 include local area networks(LAN) and wide area networks (WAN), e.g., the Internet. Communicationnetwork(s) 110 is implemented using any known network protocol,including various wired or wireless protocols, such as, for example,Ethernet, Universal Serial Bus (USB), FIREWIRE, Global System for MobileCommunications (GSM), Enhanced Data GSM Environment (EDGE), codedivision multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA),Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Wi-MAX, or anyother suitable communication protocol.

Server system 108 is implemented on one or more standalone dataprocessing apparatus or a distributed network of computers. In someexamples, server system 108 also employs various virtual devices and/orservices of third-party service providers (e.g., third-party cloudservice providers) to provide the underlying computing resources and/orinfrastructure resources of server system 108.

In some examples, second user device 122 serves as a primary device anduser device 104 serves as a companion device of second user device 122.In these examples, user device 104 is paired to second user device 122and a wireless communication connection is established with each otherupon successfully exchanging authentication information. In someexamples, user device 104 is a smart phone device (e.g., iPhone®) havingfeatures similar to those of device 200 or 400, described below withreference to FIGS. 2A, 4, and 6A-6B. In some examples, second userdevice 122 is a smart speaker device (e.g., HomePod®) having only asubset of the features included in device 200 or 400. For example,second user device 122 does not include a display or features thatenable stand-alone call functionality (e.g., telephone module 238 orvideo conference module 239). Specifically, in these examples, seconduser device 122 cannot place a call or answer a call without beingcommunicatively coupled to user device 104. Upon establishing a wirelesscommunication connection, second user device 122 is communicativelycouple to user device 104 via a direct communication connection, such asBluetooth, NFC, BTLE, or the like, or via a wireless network, such as alocal Wi-Fi network. In some examples, as described in greater detailbelow, second user device 122 accesses the call functionality of userdevice 104 to perform call-related functions. For example, a user canproviding voice input to second user device 122 to place a call oranswer an incoming call on user device 104.

Although the digital assistant shown in FIG. 1 includes both aclient-side portion (e.g., DA client 102) and a server-side portion(e.g., DA server 106), in some examples, the functions of a digitalassistant are implemented as a standalone application installed on auser device. In addition, the divisions of functionalities between theclient and server portions of the digital assistant can vary indifferent implementations. For instance, in some examples, the DA clientis a thin-client that provides only user-facing input and outputprocessing functions, and delegates all other functionalities of thedigital assistant to a backend server.

2. Electronic Devices

Attention is now directed toward embodiments of electronic devices forimplementing the client-side portion of a digital assistant. FIG. 2A isa block diagram illustrating portable multifunction device 200 withtouch-sensitive display system 212 in accordance with some embodiments.Touch-sensitive display 212 is sometimes called a “touch screen” forconvenience and is sometimes known as or called a “touch-sensitivedisplay system.” Device 200 includes memory 202 (which optionallyincludes one or more computer-readable storage mediums), memorycontroller 222, one or more processing units (CPUs) 220, peripheralsinterface 218, RF circuitry 208, audio circuitry 210, speaker 211,microphone 213, input/output (I/O) subsystem 206, other input controldevices 216, and external port 224. Device 200 optionally includes oneor more optical sensors 264. Device 200 optionally includes one or morecontact intensity sensors 265 for detecting intensity of contacts ondevice 200 (e.g., a touch-sensitive surface such as touch-sensitivedisplay system 212 of device 200). Device 200 optionally includes one ormore tactile output generators 267 for generating tactile outputs ondevice 200 (e.g., generating tactile outputs on a touch-sensitivesurface such as touch-sensitive display system 212 of device 200 ortouchpad 455 of device 400). These components optionally communicateover one or more communication buses or signal lines 203.

As used in the specification and claims, the term “intensity” of acontact on a touch-sensitive surface refers to the force or pressure(force per unit area) of a contact (e.g., a finger contact) on thetouch-sensitive surface, or to a substitute (proxy) for the force orpressure of a contact on the touch-sensitive surface. The intensity of acontact has a range of values that includes at least four distinctvalues and more typically includes hundreds of distinct values (e.g., atleast 256). Intensity of a contact is, optionally, determined (ormeasured) using various approaches and various sensors or combinationsof sensors. For example, one or more force sensors underneath oradjacent to the touch-sensitive surface are, optionally, used to measureforce at various points on the touch-sensitive surface. In someimplementations, force measurements from multiple force sensors arecombined (e.g., a weighted average) to determine an estimated force of acontact. Similarly, a pressure-sensitive tip of a stylus is, optionally,used to determine a pressure of the stylus on the touch-sensitivesurface. Alternatively, the size of the contact area detected on thetouch-sensitive surface and/or changes thereto, the capacitance of thetouch-sensitive surface proximate to the contact and/or changes thereto,and/or the resistance of the touch-sensitive surface proximate to thecontact and/or changes thereto are, optionally, used as a substitute forthe force or pressure of the contact on the touch-sensitive surface. Insome implementations, the substitute measurements for contact force orpressure are used directly to determine whether an intensity thresholdhas been exceeded (e.g., the intensity threshold is described in unitscorresponding to the substitute measurements). In some implementations,the substitute measurements for contact force or pressure are convertedto an estimated force or pressure, and the estimated force or pressureis used to determine whether an intensity threshold has been exceeded(e.g., the intensity threshold is a pressure threshold measured in unitsof pressure). Using the intensity of a contact as an attribute of a userinput allows for user access to additional device functionality that mayotherwise not be accessible by the user on a reduced-size device withlimited real estate for displaying affordances (e.g., on atouch-sensitive display) and/or receiving user input (e.g., via atouch-sensitive display, a touch-sensitive surface, or aphysical/mechanical control such as a knob or a button).

As used in the specification and claims, the term “tactile output”refers to physical displacement of a device relative to a previousposition of the device, physical displacement of a component (e.g., atouch-sensitive surface) of a device relative to another component(e.g., housing) of the device, or displacement of the component relativeto a center of mass of the device that will be detected by a user withthe user's sense of touch. For example, in situations where the deviceor the component of the device is in contact with a surface of a userthat is sensitive to touch (e.g., a finger, palm, or other part of auser's hand), the tactile output generated by the physical displacementwill be interpreted by the user as a tactile sensation corresponding toa perceived change in physical characteristics of the device or thecomponent of the device. For example, movement of a touch-sensitivesurface (e.g., a touch-sensitive display or trackpad) is, optionally,interpreted by the user as a “down click” or “up click” of a physicalactuator button. In some cases, a user will feel a tactile sensationsuch as an “down click” or “up click” even when there is no movement ofa physical actuator button associated with the touch-sensitive surfacethat is physically pressed (e.g., displaced) by the user's movements. Asanother example, movement of the touch-sensitive surface is, optionally,interpreted or sensed by the user as “roughness” of the touch-sensitivesurface, even when there is no change in smoothness of thetouch-sensitive surface. While such interpretations of touch by a userwill be subject to the individualized sensory perceptions of the user,there are many sensory perceptions of touch that are common to a largemajority of users. Thus, when a tactile output is described ascorresponding to a particular sensory perception of a user (e.g., an “upclick,” a “down click,” “roughness”), unless otherwise stated, thegenerated tactile output corresponds to physical displacement of thedevice or a component thereof that will generate the described sensoryperception for a typical (or average) user.

It should be appreciated that device 200 is only one example of aportable multifunction device, and that device 200 optionally has moreor fewer components than shown, optionally combines two or morecomponents, or optionally has a different configuration or arrangementof the components. The various components shown in FIG. 2A areimplemented in hardware, software, or a combination of both hardware andsoftware, including one or more signal processing and/orapplication-specific integrated circuits.

Memory 202 includes one or more computer-readable storage mediums. Thecomputer-readable storage mediums are, for example, tangible andnon-transitory. Memory 202 includes high-speed random access memory andalso includes non-volatile memory, such as one or more magnetic diskstorage devices, flash memory devices, or other non-volatile solid-statememory devices. Memory controller 222 controls access to memory 202 byother components of device 200.

In some examples, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium ofmemory 202 is used to store instructions (e.g., for performing aspectsof processes described below) for use by or in connection with aninstruction execution system, apparatus, or device, such as acomputer-based system, processor-containing system, or other system thatcan fetch the instructions from the instruction execution system,apparatus, or device and execute the instructions. In other examples,the instructions (e.g., for performing aspects of the processesdescribed below) are stored on a non-transitory computer-readablestorage medium (not shown) of the server system 108 or are dividedbetween the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of memory202 and the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of serversystem 108.

Peripherals interface 218 is used to couple input and output peripheralsof the device to CPU 220 and memory 202. The one or more processors 220run or execute various software programs and/or sets of instructionsstored in memory 202 to perform various functions for device 200 and toprocess data. In some embodiments, peripherals interface 218, CPU 220,and memory controller 222 are implemented on a single chip, such as chip204. In some other embodiments, they are implemented on separate chips.

RF (radio frequency) circuitry 208 receives and sends RF signals, alsocalled electromagnetic signals. RF circuitry 208 converts electricalsignals to/from electromagnetic signals and communicates withcommunications networks and other communications devices via theelectromagnetic signals. RF circuitry 208 optionally includes well-knowncircuitry for performing these functions, including but not limited toan antenna system, an RF transceiver, one or more amplifiers, a tuner,one or more oscillators, a digital signal processor, a CODEC chipset, asubscriber identity module (SIM) card, memory, and so forth. RFcircuitry 208 optionally communicates with networks, such as theInternet, also referred to as the World Wide Web (WWW), an intranetand/or a wireless network, such as a cellular telephone network, awireless local area network (LAN) and/or a metropolitan area network(MAN), and other devices by wireless communication. The RF circuitry 208optionally includes well-known circuitry for detecting near fieldcommunication (NFC) fields, such as by a short-range communicationradio. The wireless communication optionally uses any of a plurality ofcommunications standards, protocols, and technologies, including but notlimited to Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Enhanced DataGSM Environment (EDGE), high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA),high-speed uplink packet access (HSUPA), Evolution, Data-Only (EV-DO),HSPA, HSPA+, Dual-Cell HSPA (DC-HSPDA), long term evolution (LTE), nearfield communication (NFC), wideband code division multiple access(W-CDMA), code division multiple access (CDMA), time division multipleaccess (TDMA), Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy (BTLE), Wireless Fidelity(Wi-Fi) (e.g., IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n,and/or IEEE 802.11ac), voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Wi-MAX, aprotocol for e mail (e.g., Internet message access protocol (IMAP)and/or post office protocol (POP)), instant messaging (e.g., extensiblemessaging and presence protocol (XMPP), Session Initiation Protocol forInstant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE), InstantMessaging and Presence Service (IMPS)), and/or Short Message Service(SMS), or any other suitable communication protocol, includingcommunication protocols not yet developed as of the filing date of thisdocument.

Audio circuitry 210, speaker 211, and microphone 213 provide an audiointerface between a user and device 200. Audio circuitry 210 receivesaudio data from peripherals interface 218, converts the audio data to anelectrical signal, and transmits the electrical signal to speaker 211.Speaker 211 converts the electrical signal to human-audible sound waves.Audio circuitry 210 also receives electrical signals converted bymicrophone 213 from sound waves. Audio circuitry 210 converts theelectrical signal to audio data and transmits the audio data toperipherals interface 218 for processing. Audio data are retrieved fromand/or transmitted to memory 202 and/or RF circuitry 208 by peripheralsinterface 218. In some embodiments, audio circuitry 210 also includes aheadset jack (e.g., 312, FIG. 3). The headset jack provides an interfacebetween audio circuitry 210 and removable audio input/outputperipherals, such as output-only headphones or a headset with bothoutput (e.g., a headphone for one or both ears) and input (e.g., amicrophone).

I/O subsystem 206 couples input/output peripherals on device 200, suchas touch screen 212 and other input control devices 216, to peripheralsinterface 218. I/O subsystem 206 optionally includes display controller256, optical sensor controller 258, intensity sensor controller 259,haptic feedback controller 261, and one or more input controllers 260for other input or control devices. The one or more input controllers260 receive/send electrical signals from/to other input control devices216. The other input control devices 216 optionally include physicalbuttons (e.g., push buttons, rocker buttons, etc.), dials, sliderswitches, joysticks, click wheels, and so forth. In some alternateembodiments, input controller(s) 260 are, optionally, coupled to any (ornone) of the following: a keyboard, an infrared port, a USB port, and apointer device such as a mouse. The one or more buttons (e.g., 308, FIG.3) optionally include an up/down button for volume control of speaker211 and/or microphone 213. The one or more buttons optionally include apush button (e.g., 306, FIG. 3).

A quick press of the push button disengages a lock of touch screen 212or begin a process that uses gestures on the touch screen to unlock thedevice, as described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/322,549,“Unlocking a Device by Performing Gestures on an Unlock Image,” filedDec. 23, 2005, U.S. Pat. No. 7,657,849, which is hereby incorporated byreference in its entirety. A longer press of the push button (e.g., 306)turns power to device 200 on or off. The user is able to customize afunctionality of one or more of the buttons. Touch screen 212 is used toimplement virtual or soft buttons and one or more soft keyboards.

Touch-sensitive display 212 provides an input interface and an outputinterface between the device and a user. Display controller 256 receivesand/or sends electrical signals from/to touch screen 212. Touch screen212 displays visual output to the user. The visual output includesgraphics, text, icons, video, and any combination thereof (collectivelytermed “graphics”). In some embodiments, some or all of the visualoutput correspond to user-interface objects.

Touch screen 212 has a touch-sensitive surface, sensor, or set ofsensors that accepts input from the user based on haptic and/or tactilecontact. Touch screen 212 and display controller 256 (along with anyassociated modules and/or sets of instructions in memory 202) detectcontact (and any movement or breaking of the contact) on touch screen212 and convert the detected contact into interaction withuser-interface objects (e.g., one or more soft keys, icons, web pages,or images) that are displayed on touch screen 212. In an exemplaryembodiment, a point of contact between touch screen 212 and the usercorresponds to a finger of the user.

Touch screen 212 uses LCD (liquid crystal display) technology, LPD(light emitting polymer display) technology, or LED (light emittingdiode) technology, although other display technologies may be used inother embodiments. Touch screen 212 and display controller 256 detectcontact and any movement or breaking thereof using any of a plurality oftouch sensing technologies now known or later developed, including butnot limited to capacitive, resistive, infrared, and surface acousticwave technologies, as well as other proximity sensor arrays or otherelements for determining one or more points of contact with touch screen212. In an exemplary embodiment, projected mutual capacitance sensingtechnology is used, such as that found in the iPhone® and iPod Touch®from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.

A touch-sensitive display in some embodiments of touch screen 212 isanalogous to the multi-touch sensitive touchpads described in thefollowing U.S. Pat. No. 6,323,846 (Westerman et al.), U.S. Pat. No.6,570,557 (Westerman et al.), and/or U.S. Pat. No. 6,677,932(Westerman), and/or U.S. Patent Publication 2002/0015024A1, each ofwhich is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. However,touch screen 212 displays visual output from device 200, whereastouch-sensitive touchpads do not provide visual output.

A touch-sensitive display in some embodiments of touch screen 212 is asdescribed in the following applications: (1) U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 11/381,313, “Multipoint Touch Surface Controller,” filed May 2,2006; (2) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/840,862, “MultipointTouchscreen,” filed May 6, 2004; (3) U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/903,964, “Gestures For Touch Sensitive Input Devices,” filed Jul. 30,2004; (4) U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/048,264, “Gestures ForTouch Sensitive Input Devices,” filed Jan. 31, 2005; (5) U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 11/038,590, “Mode-Based Graphical User InterfacesFor Touch Sensitive Input Devices,” filed Jan. 18, 2005; (6) U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 11/228,758, “Virtual Input Device Placement On ATouch Screen User Interface,” filed Sep. 16, 2005; (7) U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 11/228,700, “Operation Of A Computer With A TouchScreen Interface,” filed Sep. 16, 2005; (8) U.S. patent application Ser.No. 11/228,737, “Activating Virtual Keys Of A Touch-Screen VirtualKeyboard,” filed Sep. 16, 2005; and (9) U.S. patent application Ser. No.11/367,749, “Multi-Functional Hand-Held Device,” filed Mar. 3, 2006. Allof these applications are incorporated by reference herein in theirentirety.

Touch screen 212 has, for example, a video resolution in excess of 100dpi. In some embodiments, the touch screen has a video resolution ofapproximately 160 dpi. The user makes contact with touch screen 212using any suitable object or appendage, such as a stylus, a finger, andso forth. In some embodiments, the user interface is designed to workprimarily with finger-based contacts and gestures, which can be lessprecise than stylus-based input due to the larger area of contact of afinger on the touch screen. In some embodiments, the device translatesthe rough finger-based input into a precise pointer/cursor position orcommand for performing the actions desired by the user.

In some embodiments, in addition to the touch screen, device 200includes a touchpad (not shown) for activating or deactivatingparticular functions. In some embodiments, the touchpad is atouch-sensitive area of the device that, unlike the touch screen, doesnot display visual output. The touchpad is a touch-sensitive surfacethat is separate from touch screen 212 or an extension of thetouch-sensitive surface formed by the touch screen.

Device 200 also includes power system 262 for powering the variouscomponents. Power system 262 includes a power management system, one ormore power sources (e.g., battery, alternating current (AC)), arecharging system, a power failure detection circuit, a power converteror inverter, a power status indicator (e.g., a light-emitting diode(LED)) and any other components associated with the generation,management and distribution of power in portable devices.

Device 200 also includes one or more optical sensors 264. FIG. 2A showsan optical sensor coupled to optical sensor controller 258 in I/Osubsystem 206. Optical sensor 264 includes charge-coupled device (CCD)or complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) phototransistors.Optical sensor 264 receives light from the environment, projectedthrough one or more lenses, and converts the light to data representingan image. In conjunction with imaging module 243 (also called a cameramodule), optical sensor 264 captures still images or video. In someembodiments, an optical sensor is located on the back of device 200,opposite touch screen display 212 on the front of the device so that thetouch screen display is used as a viewfinder for still and/or videoimage acquisition. In some embodiments, an optical sensor is located onthe front of the device so that the user's image is obtained for videoconferencing while the user views the other video conferenceparticipants on the touch screen display. In some embodiments, theposition of optical sensor 264 can be changed by the user (e.g., byrotating the lens and the sensor in the device housing) so that a singleoptical sensor 264 is used along with the touch screen display for bothvideo conferencing and still and/or video image acquisition.

Device 200 optionally also includes one or more contact intensitysensors 265. FIG. 2A shows a contact intensity sensor coupled tointensity sensor controller 259 in I/O subsystem 206. Contact intensitysensor 265 optionally includes one or more piezoresistive strain gauges,capacitive force sensors, electric force sensors, piezoelectric forcesensors, optical force sensors, capacitive touch-sensitive surfaces, orother intensity sensors (e.g., sensors used to measure the force (orpressure) of a contact on a touch-sensitive surface). Contact intensitysensor 265 receives contact intensity information (e.g., pressureinformation or a proxy for pressure information) from the environment.In some embodiments, at least one contact intensity sensor is collocatedwith, or proximate to, a touch-sensitive surface (e.g., touch-sensitivedisplay system 212). In some embodiments, at least one contact intensitysensor is located on the back of device 200, opposite touch screendisplay 212, which is located on the front of device 200.

Device 200 also includes one or more proximity sensors 266. FIG. 2Ashows proximity sensor 266 coupled to peripherals interface 218.Alternately, proximity sensor 266 is coupled to input controller 260 inI/O subsystem 206. Proximity sensor 266 is performed as described inU.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/241,839, “Proximity Detector InHandheld Device”; Ser. No. 11/240,788, “Proximity Detector In HandheldDevice”; Ser. No. 11/620,702, “Using Ambient Light Sensor To AugmentProximity Sensor Output”; Ser. No. 11/586,862, “Automated Response ToAnd Sensing Of User Activity In Portable Devices”; and Ser. No.11/638,251, “Methods And Systems For Automatic Configuration OfPeripherals,” which are hereby incorporated by reference in theirentirety. In some embodiments, the proximity sensor turns off anddisables touch screen 212 when the multifunction device is placed nearthe user's ear (e.g., when the user is making a phone call).

Device 200 optionally also includes one or more tactile outputgenerators 267. FIG. 2A shows a tactile output generator coupled tohaptic feedback controller 261 in I/O subsystem 206. Tactile outputgenerator 267 optionally includes one or more electroacoustic devicessuch as speakers or other audio components and/or electromechanicaldevices that convert energy into linear motion such as a motor,solenoid, electroactive polymer, piezoelectric actuator, electrostaticactuator, or other tactile output generating component (e.g., acomponent that converts electrical signals into tactile outputs on thedevice). Contact intensity sensor 265 receives tactile feedbackgeneration instructions from haptic feedback module 233 and generatestactile outputs on device 200 that are capable of being sensed by a userof device 200. In some embodiments, at least one tactile outputgenerator is collocated with, or proximate to, a touch-sensitive surface(e.g., touch-sensitive display system 212) and, optionally, generates atactile output by moving the touch-sensitive surface vertically (e.g.,in/out of a surface of device 200) or laterally (e.g., back and forth inthe same plane as a surface of device 200). In some embodiments, atleast one tactile output generator sensor is located on the back ofdevice 200, opposite touch screen display 212, which is located on thefront of device 200.

Device 200 also includes one or more accelerometers 268. FIG. 2A showsaccelerometer 268 coupled to peripherals interface 218. Alternately,accelerometer 268 is coupled to an input controller 260 in I/O subsystem206. Accelerometer 268 performs, for example, as described in U.S.Patent Publication No. 20050190059, “Acceleration-based Theft DetectionSystem for Portable Electronic Devices,” and U.S. Patent Publication No.20060017692, “Methods And Apparatuses For Operating A Portable DeviceBased On An Accelerometer,” both of which are incorporated by referenceherein in their entirety. In some embodiments, information is displayedon the touch screen display in a portrait view or a landscape view basedon an analysis of data received from the one or more accelerometers.Device 200 optionally includes, in addition to accelerometer(s) 268, amagnetometer (not shown) and a GPS (or GLONASS or other globalnavigation system) receiver (not shown) for obtaining informationconcerning the location and orientation (e.g., portrait or landscape) ofdevice 200.

In some embodiments, the software components stored in memory 202include operating system 226, communication module (or set ofinstructions) 228, contact/motion module (or set of instructions) 230,graphics module (or set of instructions) 232, text input module (or setof instructions) 234, Global Positioning System (GPS) module (or set ofinstructions) 235, Digital Assistant Client Module 229, and applications(or sets of instructions) 236. Further, memory 202 stores data andmodels, such as user data and models 231. Furthermore, in someembodiments, memory 202 (FIG. 2A) or 470 (FIG. 4) stores device/globalinternal state 257, as shown in FIGS. 2A and 4. Device/global internalstate 257 includes one or more of: active application state, indicatingwhich applications, if any, are currently active; display state,indicating what applications, views or other information occupy variousregions of touch screen display 212; sensor state, including informationobtained from the device's various sensors and input control devices216; and location information concerning the device's location and/orattitude.

Operating system 226 (e.g., Darwin, RTXC, LINUX, UNIX, OS X, iOS,WINDOWS, or an embedded operating system such as VxWorks) includesvarious software components and/or drivers for controlling and managinggeneral system tasks (e.g., memory management, storage device control,power management, etc.) and facilitates communication between varioushardware and software components.

Communication module 228 facilitates communication with other devicesover one or more external ports 224 and also includes various softwarecomponents for handling data received by RF circuitry 208 and/orexternal port 224. External port 224 (e.g., Universal Serial Bus (USB),FIREWIRE, etc.) is adapted for coupling directly to other devices orindirectly over a network (e.g., the Internet, wireless LAN, etc.). Insome embodiments, the external port is a multi-pin (e.g., 30-pin)connector that is the same as, or similar to and/or compatible with, the30-pin connector used on iPod® (trademark of Apple Inc.) devices. Insome examples, communication module 228 is configured to establish awireless communication connection between device 200 and a seconddevice. In particular, communication module 228 coordinates the exchangeof authentication information with the second device to determinewhether the second device is a registered device of device 200. Upondetermining, based on the exchanged authentication, that the seconddevice is a registered device of device 200, communication module 228establishes (e.g., using RF circuitry 208) a wireless communicationconnection with the second device.

Contact/motion module 230 optionally detects contact with touch screen212 (in conjunction with display controller 256) and othertouch-sensitive devices (e.g., a touchpad or physical click wheel).Contact/motion module 230 includes various software components forperforming various operations related to detection of contact, such asdetermining if contact has occurred (e.g., detecting a finger-downevent), determining an intensity of the contact (e.g., the force orpressure of the contact or a substitute for the force or pressure of thecontact), determining if there is movement of the contact and trackingthe movement across the touch-sensitive surface (e.g., detecting one ormore finger-dragging events), and determining if the contact has ceased(e.g., detecting a finger-up event or a break in contact).Contact/motion module 230 receives contact data from the touch-sensitivesurface. Determining movement of the point of contact, which isrepresented by a series of contact data, optionally includes determiningspeed (magnitude), velocity (magnitude and direction), and/or anacceleration (a change in magnitude and/or direction) of the point ofcontact. These operations are, optionally, applied to single contacts(e.g., one finger contacts) or to multiple simultaneous contacts (e.g.,“multitouch”/multiple finger contacts). In some embodiments,contact/motion module 230 and display controller 256 detect contact on atouchpad.

In some embodiments, contact/motion module 230 uses a set of one or moreintensity thresholds to determine whether an operation has beenperformed by a user (e.g., to determine whether a user has “clicked” onan icon). In some embodiments, at least a subset of the intensitythresholds are determined in accordance with software parameters (e.g.,the intensity thresholds are not determined by the activation thresholdsof particular physical actuators and can be adjusted without changingthe physical hardware of device 200). For example, a mouse “click”threshold of a trackpad or touch screen display can be set to any of alarge range of predefined threshold values without changing the trackpador touch screen display hardware. Additionally, in some implementations,a user of the device is provided with software settings for adjustingone or more of the set of intensity thresholds (e.g., by adjustingindividual intensity thresholds and/or by adjusting a plurality ofintensity thresholds at once with a system-level click “intensity”parameter).

Contact/motion module 230 optionally detects a gesture input by a user.Different gestures on the touch-sensitive surface have different contactpatterns (e.g., different motions, timings, and/or intensities ofdetected contacts). Thus, a gesture is, optionally, detected bydetecting a particular contact pattern. For example, detecting a fingertap gesture includes detecting a finger-down event followed by detectinga finger-up (liftoff) event at the same position (or substantially thesame position) as the finger-down event (e.g., at the position of anicon). As another example, detecting a finger swipe gesture on thetouch-sensitive surface includes detecting a finger-down event followedby detecting one or more finger-dragging events, and subsequentlyfollowed by detecting a finger-up (liftoff) event.

Graphics module 232 includes various known software components forrendering and displaying graphics on touch screen 212 or other display,including components for changing the visual impact (e.g., brightness,transparency, saturation, contrast, or other visual property) ofgraphics that are displayed. As used herein, the term “graphics”includes any object that can be displayed to a user, including, withoutlimitation, text, web pages, icons (such as user-interface objectsincluding soft keys), digital images, videos, animations, and the like.

In some embodiments, graphics module 232 stores data representinggraphics to be used. Each graphic is, optionally, assigned acorresponding code. Graphics module 232 receives, from applicationsetc., one or more codes specifying graphics to be displayed along with,if necessary, coordinate data and other graphic property data, and thengenerates screen image data to output to display controller 256.

Haptic feedback module 233 includes various software components forgenerating instructions used by tactile output generator(s) 267 toproduce tactile outputs at one or more locations on device 200 inresponse to user interactions with device 200.

Text input module 234, which is, in some examples, a component ofgraphics module 232, provides soft keyboards for entering text invarious applications (e.g., contacts 237, email 240, IM 241, browser247, and any other application that needs text input).

GPS module 235 determines the location of the device and provides thisinformation for use in various applications (e.g., to telephone 238 foruse in location-based dialing; to camera 243 as picture/video metadata;and to applications that provide location-based services such as weatherwidgets, local yellow page widgets, and map/navigation widgets).

Digital assistant client module 229 includes various client-side digitalassistant instructions to provide the client-side functionalities of thedigital assistant. For example, digital assistant client module 229 iscapable of accepting voice input (e.g., speech input), text input, touchinput, and/or gestural input through various user interfaces (e.g.,microphone 213, accelerometer(s) 268, touch-sensitive display system212, optical sensor(s) 229, other input control devices 216, etc.) ofportable multifunction device 200. Digital assistant client module 229is also capable of providing output in audio (e.g., speech output),visual, and/or tactile forms through various output interfaces (e.g.,speaker 211, touch-sensitive display system 212, tactile outputgenerator(s) 267, etc.) of portable multifunction device 200. Forexample, output is provided as voice, sound, alerts, text messages,menus, graphics, videos, animations, vibrations, and/or combinations oftwo or more of the above. During operation, digital assistant clientmodule 229 communicates with DA server 106 using RF circuitry 208.

User data and models 231 include various data associated with the user(e.g., user-specific vocabulary data, user preference data,user-specified name pronunciations, data from the user's electronicaddress book, to-do lists, shopping lists, etc.) to provide theclient-side functionalities of the digital assistant. Further, user dataand models 231 include various models (e.g., speech recognition models,statistical language models, natural language processing models,ontology, task flow models, service models, etc.) for processing userinput and determining user intent.

In some examples, digital assistant client module 229 utilizes thevarious sensors, subsystems, and peripheral devices of portablemultifunction device 200 to gather additional information from thesurrounding environment of the portable multifunction device 200 toestablish a context associated with a user, the current userinteraction, and/or the current user input. In some examples, digitalassistant client module 229 provides the contextual information or asubset thereof with the user input to DA server 106 to help infer theuser's intent. In some examples, the digital assistant also uses thecontextual information to determine how to prepare and deliver outputsto the user. Contextual information is referred to as context data.

In some examples, the contextual information that accompanies the userinput includes sensor information, e.g., lighting, ambient noise,ambient temperature, images or videos of the surrounding environment,etc. In some examples, the contextual information can also include thephysical state of the device, e.g., device orientation, device location,device temperature, power level, speed, acceleration, motion patterns,cellular signals strength, etc. In some examples, information related tothe software state of DA server 106, e.g., running processes, installedprograms, past and present network activities, background services,error logs, resources usage, etc., and of portable multifunction device200 is provided to DA server 106 as contextual information associatedwith a user input.

In some examples, the digital assistant client module 229 selectivelyprovides information (e.g., user data 231) stored on the portablemultifunction device 200 in response to requests from DA server 106. Insome examples, digital assistant client module 229 also elicitsadditional input from the user via a natural language dialogue or otheruser interfaces upon request by DA server 106. Digital assistant clientmodule 229 passes the additional input to DA server 106 to help DAserver 106 in intent deduction and/or fulfillment of the user's intentexpressed in the user request.

A more detailed description of a digital assistant is described belowwith reference to FIGS. 7A-7C. It should be recognized that digitalassistant client module 229 can include any number of the sub-modules ofdigital assistant module 726 described below.

Applications 236 include the following modules (or sets ofinstructions), or a subset or superset thereof:

-   -   Contacts module 237 (sometimes called an address book or contact        list);    -   Telephone module 238;    -   Video conference module 239;    -   E-mail client module 240;    -   Instant messaging (IM) module 241;    -   Workout support module 242;    -   Camera module 243 for still and/or video images;    -   Image management module 244;    -   Video player module;    -   Music player module;    -   Browser module 247;    -   Calendar module 248;    -   Widget modules 249, which includes, in some examples, one or        more of: weather widget 249-1, stocks widget 249-2, calculator        widget 249-3, alarm clock widget 249-4, dictionary widget 249-5,        and other widgets obtained by the user, as well as user-created        widgets 249-6;    -   Widget creator module 250 for making user-created widgets 249-6;    -   Search module 251;    -   Video and music player module 252, which merges video player        module and music player module;    -   Notes module 253;    -   Map module 254; and/or    -   Online video module 255.

Examples of other applications 236 that are stored in memory 202 includeother word processing applications, other image editing applications,drawing applications, presentation applications, JAVA-enabledapplications, encryption, digital rights management, voice recognition,and voice replication.

In conjunction with touch screen 212, display controller 256,contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, and text input module234, contacts module 237 are used to manage an address book or contactlist (e.g., stored in application internal state 292 of contacts module237 in memory 202 or memory 470), including: adding name(s) to theaddress book; deleting name(s) from the address book; associatingtelephone number(s), e-mail address(es), physical address(es) or otherinformation with a name; associating an image with a name; categorizingand sorting names; providing telephone numbers or e-mail addresses toinitiate and/or facilitate communications by telephone 238, videoconference module 239, e-mail 240, or IM 241; and so forth.

In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, audio circuitry 210, speaker 211,microphone 213, touch screen 212, display controller 256, contact/motionmodule 230, graphics module 232, and text input module 234, telephonemodule 238 are used to enter a sequence of characters corresponding to atelephone number, access one or more telephone numbers in contactsmodule 237, modify a telephone number that has been entered, dial arespective telephone number, conduct a conversation, and disconnect orhang up when the conversation is completed. As noted above, the wirelesscommunication uses any of a plurality of communications standards,protocols, and technologies.

In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, audio circuitry 210, speaker 211,microphone 213, touch screen 212, display controller 256, optical sensor264, optical sensor controller 258, contact/motion module 230, graphicsmodule 232, text input module 234, contacts module 237, and telephonemodule 238, video conference module 239 includes executable instructionsto initiate, conduct, and terminate a video conference between a userand one or more other participants in accordance with user instructions.

In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212, displaycontroller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, and textinput module 234, e-mail client module 240 includes executableinstructions to create, send, receive, and manage e-mail in response touser instructions. In conjunction with image management module 244,e-mail client module 240 makes it very easy to create and send e-mailswith still or video images taken with camera module 243.

In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212, displaycontroller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, and textinput module 234, the instant messaging module 241 includes executableinstructions to enter a sequence of characters corresponding to aninstant message, to modify previously entered characters, to transmit arespective instant message (for example, using a Short Message Service(SMS) or Multimedia Message Service (MMS) protocol for telephony-basedinstant messages or using XMPP, SIMPLE, or IMPS for Internet-basedinstant messages), to receive instant messages, and to view receivedinstant messages. In some embodiments, transmitted and/or receivedinstant messages include graphics, photos, audio files, video filesand/or other attachments as are supported in an MMS and/or an EnhancedMessaging Service (EMS). As used herein, “instant messaging” refers toboth telephony-based messages (e.g., messages sent using SMS or MMS) andInternet-based messages (e.g., messages sent using XMPP, SIMPLE, orIMPS).

In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212, displaycontroller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, textinput module 234, GPS module 235, map module 254, and music playermodule, workout support module 242 includes executable instructions tocreate workouts (e.g., with time, distance, and/or calorie burninggoals); communicate with workout sensors (sports devices); receiveworkout sensor data; calibrate sensors used to monitor a workout; selectand play music for a workout; and display, store, and transmit workoutdata.

In conjunction with touch screen 212, display controller 256, opticalsensor(s) 264, optical sensor controller 258, contact/motion module 230,graphics module 232, and image management module 244, camera module 243includes executable instructions to capture still images or video(including a video stream) and store them into memory 202, modifycharacteristics of a still image or video, or delete a still image orvideo from memory 202.

In conjunction with touch screen 212, display controller 256,contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, text input module 234,and camera module 243, image management module 244 includes executableinstructions to arrange, modify (e.g., edit), or otherwise manipulate,label, delete, present (e.g., in a digital slide show or album), andstore still and/or video images.

In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212, displaycontroller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, and textinput module 234, browser module 247 includes executable instructions tobrowse the Internet in accordance with user instructions, includingsearching, linking to, receiving, and displaying web pages or portionsthereof, as well as attachments and other files linked to web pages.

In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212, displaycontroller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, textinput module 234, e-mail client module 240, and browser module 247,calendar module 248 includes executable instructions to create, display,modify, and store calendars and data associated with calendars (e.g.,calendar entries, to-do lists, etc.) in accordance with userinstructions.

In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212, displaycontroller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, textinput module 234, and browser module 247, widget modules 249 aremini-applications that can be downloaded and used by a user (e.g.,weather widget 249-1, stocks widget 249-2, calculator widget 249-3,alarm clock widget 249-4, and dictionary widget 249-5) or created by theuser (e.g., user-created widget 249-6). In some embodiments, a widgetincludes an HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) file, a CSS (CascadingStyle Sheets) file, and a JavaScript file. In some embodiments, a widgetincludes an XML (Extensible Markup Language) file and a JavaScript file(e.g., Yahoo! Widgets).

In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212, displaycontroller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, textinput module 234, and browser module 247, the widget creator module 250are used by a user to create widgets (e.g., turning a user-specifiedportion of a web page into a widget).

In conjunction with touch screen 212, display controller 256,contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, and text input module234, search module 251 includes executable instructions to search fortext, music, sound, image, video, and/or other files in memory 202 thatmatch one or more search criteria (e.g., one or more user-specifiedsearch terms) in accordance with user instructions.

In conjunction with touch screen 212, display controller 256,contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, audio circuitry 210,speaker 211, RF circuitry 208, and browser module 247, video and musicplayer module 252 includes executable instructions that allow the userto download and play back recorded music and other sound files stored inone or more file formats, such as MP3 or AAC files, and executableinstructions to display, present, or otherwise play back videos (e.g.,on touch screen 212 or on an external, connected display via externalport 224). In some embodiments, device 200 optionally includes thefunctionality of an MP3 player, such as an iPod (trademark of AppleInc.).

In conjunction with touch screen 212, display controller 256,contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, and text input module234, notes module 253 includes executable instructions to create andmanage notes, to-do lists, and the like in accordance with userinstructions.

In conjunction with RF circuitry 208, touch screen 212, displaycontroller 256, contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, textinput module 234, GPS module 235, and browser module 247, map module 254are used to receive, display, modify, and store maps and data associatedwith maps (e.g., driving directions, data on stores and other points ofinterest at or near a particular location, and other location-baseddata) in accordance with user instructions.

In conjunction with touch screen 212, display controller 256,contact/motion module 230, graphics module 232, audio circuitry 210,speaker 211, RF circuitry 208, text input module 234, e-mail clientmodule 240, and browser module 247, online video module 255 includesinstructions that allow the user to access, browse, receive (e.g., bystreaming and/or download), play back (e.g., on the touch screen or onan external, connected display via external port 224), send an e-mailwith a link to a particular online video, and otherwise manage onlinevideos in one or more file formats, such as H.264. In some embodiments,instant messaging module 241, rather than e-mail client module 240, isused to send a link to a particular online video. Additional descriptionof the online video application can be found in U.S. Provisional PatentApplication No. 60/936,562, “Portable Multifunction Device, Method, andGraphical User Interface for Playing Online Videos,” filed Jun. 20,2007, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/968,067, “PortableMultifunction Device, Method, and Graphical User Interface for PlayingOnline Videos,” filed Dec. 31, 2007, the contents of which are herebyincorporated by reference in their entirety.

Each of the above-identified modules and applications corresponds to aset of executable instructions for performing one or more functionsdescribed above and the methods described in this application (e.g., thecomputer-implemented methods and other information processing methodsdescribed herein). These modules (e.g., sets of instructions) need notbe implemented as separate software programs, procedures, or modules,and thus various subsets of these modules can be combined or otherwiserearranged in various embodiments. For example, video player module canbe combined with music player module into a single module (e.g., videoand music player module 252, FIG. 2A). In some embodiments, memory 202stores a subset of the modules and data structures identified above.Furthermore, memory 202 stores additional modules and data structuresnot described above.

In some embodiments, device 200 is a device where operation of apredefined set of functions on the device is performed exclusivelythrough a touch screen and/or a touchpad. By using a touch screen and/ora touchpad as the primary input control device for operation of device200, the number of physical input control devices (such as push buttons,dials, and the like) on device 200 is reduced.

The predefined set of functions that are performed exclusively through atouch screen and/or a touchpad optionally include navigation betweenuser interfaces. In some embodiments, the touchpad, when touched by theuser, navigates device 200 to a main, home, or root menu from any userinterface that is displayed on device 200. In such embodiments, a “menubutton” is implemented using a touchpad. In some other embodiments, themenu button is a physical push button or other physical input controldevice instead of a touchpad.

FIG. 2B is a block diagram illustrating exemplary components for eventhandling in accordance with some embodiments. In some embodiments,memory 202 (FIG. 2A) or 470 (FIG. 4) includes event sorter 270 (e.g., inoperating system 226) and a respective application 236-1 (e.g., any ofthe aforementioned applications 237-251, 255, 480-490).

Event sorter 270 receives event information and determines theapplication 236-1 and application view 291 of application 236-1 to whichto deliver the event information. Event sorter 270 includes eventmonitor 271 and event dispatcher module 274. In some embodiments,application 236-1 includes application internal state 292, whichindicates the current application view(s) displayed on touch-sensitivedisplay 212 when the application is active or executing. In someembodiments, device/global internal state 257 is used by event sorter270 to determine which application(s) is (are) currently active, andapplication internal state 292 is used by event sorter 270 to determineapplication views 291 to which to deliver event information.

In some embodiments, application internal state 292 includes additionalinformation, such as one or more of: resume information to be used whenapplication 236-1 resumes execution, user interface state informationthat indicates information being displayed or that is ready for displayby application 236-1, a state queue for enabling the user to go back toa prior state or view of application 236-1, and a redo/undo queue ofprevious actions taken by the user.

Event monitor 271 receives event information from peripherals interface218. Event information includes information about a sub-event (e.g., auser touch on touch-sensitive display 212, as part of a multi-touchgesture). Peripherals interface 218 transmits information it receivesfrom I/O subsystem 206 or a sensor, such as proximity sensor 266,accelerometer(s) 268, and/or microphone 213 (through audio circuitry210). Information that peripherals interface 218 receives from I/Osubsystem 206 includes information from touch-sensitive display 212 or atouch-sensitive surface.

In some embodiments, event monitor 271 sends requests to the peripheralsinterface 218 at predetermined intervals. In response, peripheralsinterface 218 transmits event information. In other embodiments,peripherals interface 218 transmits event information only when there isa significant event (e.g., receiving an input above a predeterminednoise threshold and/or for more than a predetermined duration).

In some embodiments, event sorter 270 also includes a hit viewdetermination module 272 and/or an active event recognizer determinationmodule 273.

Hit view determination module 272 provides software procedures fordetermining where a sub-event has taken place within one or more viewswhen touch-sensitive display 212 displays more than one view. Views aremade up of controls and other elements that a user can see on thedisplay.

Another aspect of the user interface associated with an application is aset of views, sometimes herein called application views or userinterface windows, in which information is displayed and touch-basedgestures occur. The application views (of a respective application) inwhich a touch is detected correspond to programmatic levels within aprogrammatic or view hierarchy of the application. For example, thelowest level view in which a touch is detected is called the hit view,and the set of events that are recognized as proper inputs is determinedbased, at least in part, on the hit view of the initial touch thatbegins a touch-based gesture.

Hit view determination module 272 receives information related to subevents of a touch-based gesture. When an application has multiple viewsorganized in a hierarchy, hit view determination module 272 identifies ahit view as the lowest view in the hierarchy which should handle thesub-event. In most circumstances, the hit view is the lowest level viewin which an initiating sub-event occurs (e.g., the first sub-event inthe sequence of sub-events that form an event or potential event). Oncethe hit view is identified by the hit view determination module 272, thehit view typically receives all sub-events related to the same touch orinput source for which it was identified as the hit view.

Active event recognizer determination module 273 determines which viewor views within a view hierarchy should receive a particular sequence ofsub-events. In some embodiments, active event recognizer determinationmodule 273 determines that only the hit view should receive a particularsequence of sub-events. In other embodiments, active event recognizerdetermination module 273 determines that all views that include thephysical location of a sub-event are actively involved views, andtherefore determines that all actively involved views should receive aparticular sequence of sub-events. In other embodiments, even if touchsub-events were entirely confined to the area associated with oneparticular view, views higher in the hierarchy would still remain asactively involved views.

Event dispatcher module 274 dispatches the event information to an eventrecognizer (e.g., event recognizer 280). In embodiments including activeevent recognizer determination module 273, event dispatcher module 274delivers the event information to an event recognizer determined byactive event recognizer determination module 273. In some embodiments,event dispatcher module 274 stores in an event queue the eventinformation, which is retrieved by a respective event receiver 282.

In some embodiments, operating system 226 includes event sorter 270.Alternatively, application 236-1 includes event sorter 270. In yet otherembodiments, event sorter 270 is a stand-alone module, or a part ofanother module stored in memory 202, such as contact/motion module 230.

In some embodiments, application 236-1 includes a plurality of eventhandlers 290 and one or more application views 291, each of whichincludes instructions for handling touch events that occur within arespective view of the application's user interface. Each applicationview 291 of the application 236-1 includes one or more event recognizers280. Typically, a respective application view 291 includes a pluralityof event recognizers 280. In other embodiments, one or more of eventrecognizers 280 are part of a separate module, such as a user interfacekit (not shown) or a higher level object from which application 236-1inherits methods and other properties. In some embodiments, a respectiveevent handler 290 includes one or more of: data updater 276, objectupdater 277, GUI updater 278, and/or event data 279 received from eventsorter 270. Event handler 290 utilizes or calls data updater 276, objectupdater 277, or GUI updater 278 to update the application internal state292. Alternatively, one or more of the application views 291 include oneor more respective event handlers 290. Also, in some embodiments, one ormore of data updater 276, object updater 277, and GUI updater 278 areincluded in a respective application view 291.

A respective event recognizer 280 receives event information (e.g.,event data 279) from event sorter 270 and identifies an event from theevent information. Event recognizer 280 includes event receiver 282 andevent comparator 284. In some embodiments, event recognizer 280 alsoincludes at least a subset of: metadata 283, and event deliveryinstructions 288 (which include sub-event delivery instructions).

Event receiver 282 receives event information from event sorter 270. Theevent information includes information about a sub-event, for example, atouch or a touch movement. Depending on the sub-event, the eventinformation also includes additional information, such as location ofthe sub-event. When the sub-event concerns motion of a touch, the eventinformation also includes speed and direction of the sub-event. In someembodiments, events include rotation of the device from one orientationto another (e.g., from a portrait orientation to a landscapeorientation, or vice versa), and the event information includescorresponding information about the current orientation (also calleddevice attitude) of the device.

Event comparator 284 compares the event information to predefined eventor sub-event definitions and, based on the comparison, determines anevent or sub event, or determines or updates the state of an event orsub-event. In some embodiments, event comparator 284 includes eventdefinitions 286. Event definitions 286 contain definitions of events(e.g., predefined sequences of sub-events), for example, event 1(287-1), event 2 (287-2), and others. In some embodiments, sub-events inan event (287) include, for example, touch begin, touch end, touchmovement, touch cancellation, and multiple touching. In one example, thedefinition for event 1 (287-1) is a double tap on a displayed object.The double tap, for example, comprises a first touch (touch begin) onthe displayed object for a predetermined phase, a first liftoff (touchend) for a predetermined phase, a second touch (touch begin) on thedisplayed object for a predetermined phase, and a second liftoff (touchend) for a predetermined phase. In another example, the definition forevent 2 (287-2) is a dragging on a displayed object. The dragging, forexample, comprises a touch (or contact) on the displayed object for apredetermined phase, a movement of the touch across touch-sensitivedisplay 212, and liftoff of the touch (touch end). In some embodiments,the event also includes information for one or more associated eventhandlers 290.

In some embodiments, event definition 287 includes a definition of anevent for a respective user-interface object. In some embodiments, eventcomparator 284 performs a hit test to determine which user-interfaceobject is associated with a sub-event. For example, in an applicationview in which three user-interface objects are displayed ontouch-sensitive display 212, when a touch is detected on touch-sensitivedisplay 212, event comparator 284 performs a hit test to determine whichof the three user-interface objects is associated with the touch(sub-event). If each displayed object is associated with a respectiveevent handler 290, the event comparator uses the result of the hit testto determine which event handler 290 should be activated. For example,event comparator 284 selects an event handler associated with thesub-event and the object triggering the hit test.

In some embodiments, the definition for a respective event (287) alsoincludes delayed actions that delay delivery of the event informationuntil after it has been determined whether the sequence of sub-eventsdoes or does not correspond to the event recognizer's event type.

When a respective event recognizer 280 determines that the series ofsub-events do not match any of the events in event definitions 286, therespective event recognizer 280 enters an event impossible, eventfailed, or event ended state, after which it disregards subsequentsub-events of the touch-based gesture. In this situation, other eventrecognizers, if any, that remain active for the hit view continue totrack and process sub-events of an ongoing touch-based gesture.

In some embodiments, a respective event recognizer 280 includes metadata283 with configurable properties, flags, and/or lists that indicate howthe event delivery system should perform sub-event delivery to activelyinvolved event recognizers. In some embodiments, metadata 283 includesconfigurable properties, flags, and/or lists that indicate how eventrecognizers interact, or are enabled to interact, with one another. Insome embodiments, metadata 283 includes configurable properties, flags,and/or lists that indicate whether sub-events are delivered to varyinglevels in the view or programmatic hierarchy.

In some embodiments, a respective event recognizer 280 activates eventhandler 290 associated with an event when one or more particularsub-events of an event are recognized. In some embodiments, a respectiveevent recognizer 280 delivers event information associated with theevent to event handler 290. Activating an event handler 290 is distinctfrom sending (and deferred sending) sub-events to a respective hit view.In some embodiments, event recognizer 280 throws a flag associated withthe recognized event, and event handler 290 associated with the flagcatches the flag and performs a predefined process.

In some embodiments, event delivery instructions 288 include sub-eventdelivery instructions that deliver event information about a sub-eventwithout activating an event handler. Instead, the sub-event deliveryinstructions deliver event information to event handlers associated withthe series of sub-events or to actively involved views. Event handlersassociated with the series of sub-events or with actively involved viewsreceive the event information and perform a predetermined process.

In some embodiments, data updater 276 creates and updates data used inapplication 236-1. For example, data updater 276 updates the telephonenumber used in contacts module 237, or stores a video file used in videoplayer module. In some embodiments, object updater 277 creates andupdates objects used in application 236-1. For example, object updater277 creates a new user-interface object or updates the position of auser-interface object. GUI updater 278 updates the GUI. For example, GUIupdater 278 prepares display information and sends it to graphics module232 for display on a touch-sensitive display.

In some embodiments, event handler(s) 290 includes or has access to dataupdater 276, object updater 277, and GUI updater 278. In someembodiments, data updater 276, object updater 277, and GUI updater 278are included in a single module of a respective application 236-1 orapplication view 291. In other embodiments, they are included in two ormore software modules.

It shall be understood that the foregoing discussion regarding eventhandling of user touches on touch-sensitive displays also applies toother forms of user inputs to operate multifunction devices 200 withinput devices, not all of which are initiated on touch screens. Forexample, mouse movement and mouse button presses, optionally coordinatedwith single or multiple keyboard presses or holds; contact movementssuch as taps, drags, scrolls, etc. on touchpads; pen stylus inputs;movement of the device; oral instructions; detected eye movements;biometric inputs; and/or any combination thereof are optionally utilizedas inputs corresponding to sub-events which define an event to berecognized.

FIG. 3 illustrates a portable multifunction device 200 having a touchscreen 212 in accordance with some embodiments. The touch screenoptionally displays one or more graphics within user interface (UI) 300.In this embodiment, as well as others described below, a user is enabledto select one or more of the graphics by making a gesture on thegraphics, for example, with one or more fingers 302 (not drawn to scalein the figure) or one or more styluses 303 (not drawn to scale in thefigure). In some embodiments, selection of one or more graphics occurswhen the user breaks contact with the one or more graphics. In someembodiments, the gesture optionally includes one or more taps, one ormore swipes (from left to right, right to left, upward and/or downward),and/or a rolling of a finger (from right to left, left to right, upwardand/or downward) that has made contact with device 200. In someimplementations or circumstances, inadvertent contact with a graphicdoes not select the graphic. For example, a swipe gesture that sweepsover an application icon optionally does not select the correspondingapplication when the gesture corresponding to selection is a tap.

Device 200 also includes one or more physical buttons, such as “home” ormenu button 304. As described previously, menu button 304 is used tonavigate to any application 236 in a set of applications that isexecuted on device 200. Alternatively, in some embodiments, the menubutton is implemented as a soft key in a GUI displayed on touch screen212.

In one embodiment, device 200 includes touch screen 212, menu button304, push button 306 for powering the device on/off and locking thedevice, volume adjustment button(s) 308, subscriber identity module(SIM) card slot 310, headset jack 312, and docking/charging externalport 224. Push button 306 is, optionally, used to turn the power on/offon the device by depressing the button and holding the button in thedepressed state for a predefined time interval; to lock the device bydepressing the button and releasing the button before the predefinedtime interval has elapsed; and/or to unlock the device or initiate anunlock process. In an alternative embodiment, device 200 also acceptsverbal input for activation or deactivation of some functions throughmicrophone 213. Device 200 also, optionally, includes one or morecontact intensity sensors 265 for detecting intensity of contacts ontouch screen 212 and/or one or more tactile output generators 267 forgenerating tactile outputs for a user of device 200.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an exemplary multifunction device with adisplay and a touch-sensitive surface in accordance with someembodiments. Device 400 need not be portable. In some embodiments,device 400 is a laptop computer, a desktop computer, a tablet computer,a multimedia player device, a navigation device, an educational device(such as a child's learning toy), a gaming system, or a control device(e.g., a home or industrial controller). Device 400 typically includesone or more processing units (CPUs) 410, one or more network or othercommunications interfaces 460, memory 470, and one or more communicationbuses 420 for interconnecting these components. Communication buses 420optionally include circuitry (sometimes called a chipset) thatinterconnects and controls communications between system components.Device 400 includes input/output (I/O) interface 430 comprising display440, which is typically a touch screen display. I/O interface 430 alsooptionally includes a keyboard and/or mouse (or other pointing device)450 and touchpad 455, tactile output generator 457 for generatingtactile outputs on device 400 (e.g., similar to tactile outputgenerator(s) 267 described above with reference to FIG. 2A), sensors 459(e.g., optical, acceleration, proximity, touch-sensitive, and/or contactintensity sensors similar to contact intensity sensor(s) 265 describedabove with reference to FIG. 2A). Memory 470 includes high-speed randomaccess memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, DDR RAM, or other random access solidstate memory devices; and optionally includes non-volatile memory, suchas one or more magnetic disk storage devices, optical disk storagedevices, flash memory devices, or other non-volatile solid state storagedevices. Memory 470 optionally includes one or more storage devicesremotely located from CPU(s) 410. In some embodiments, memory 470 storesprograms, modules, and data structures analogous to the programs,modules, and data structures stored in memory 202 of portablemultifunction device 200 (FIG. 2A), or a subset thereof. Furthermore,memory 470 optionally stores additional programs, modules, and datastructures not present in memory 202 of portable multifunction device200. For example, memory 470 of device 400 optionally stores drawingmodule 480, presentation module 482, word processing module 484, websitecreation module 486, disk authoring module 488, and/or spreadsheetmodule 490, while memory 202 of portable multifunction device 200 (FIG.2A) optionally does not store these modules.

Each of the above-identified elements in FIG. 4 is, in some examples,stored in one or more of the previously mentioned memory devices. Eachof the above-identified modules corresponds to a set of instructions forperforming a function described above. The above-identified modules orprograms (e.g., sets of instructions) need not be implemented asseparate software programs, procedures, or modules, and thus varioussubsets of these modules are combined or otherwise rearranged in variousembodiments. In some embodiments, memory 470 stores a subset of themodules and data structures identified above. Furthermore, memory 470stores additional modules and data structures not described above.

Attention is now directed towards embodiments of user interfaces thatcan be implemented on, for example, portable multifunction device 200.

FIG. 5A illustrates an exemplary user interface for a menu ofapplications on portable multifunction device 200 in accordance withsome embodiments. Similar user interfaces are implemented on device 400.In some embodiments, user interface 500 includes the following elements,or a subset or superset thereof:

Signal strength indicator(s) 502 for wireless communication(s), such ascellular and Wi-Fi signals;

-   -   Time 504;    -   Bluetooth indicator 505;    -   Battery status indicator 506;    -   Tray 508 with icons for frequently used applications, such as:        -   Icon 516 for telephone module 238, labeled “Phone,” which            optionally includes an indicator 514 of the number of missed            calls or voicemail messages;        -   Icon 518 for e-mail client module 240, labeled “Mail,” which            optionally includes an indicator 510 of the number of unread            e-mails;        -   Icon 520 for browser module 247, labeled “Browser;” and        -   Icon 522 for video and music player module 252, also            referred to as iPod (trademark of Apple Inc.) module 252,            labeled “iPod;” and    -   Icons for other applications, such as:        -   Icon 524 for IM module 241, labeled “Messages;”        -   Icon 526 for calendar module 248, labeled “Calendar;”        -   Icon 528 for image management module 244, labeled “Photos;”        -   Icon 530 for camera module 243, labeled “Camera;”        -   Icon 532 for online video module 255, labeled “Online            Video;”        -   Icon 534 for stocks widget 249-2, labeled “Stocks;”        -   Icon 536 for map module 254, labeled “Maps;”        -   Icon 538 for weather widget 249-1, labeled “Weather;”        -   Icon 540 for alarm clock widget 249-4, labeled “Clock;”        -   Icon 542 for workout support module 242, labeled “Workout            Support;”        -   Icon 544 for notes module 253, labeled “Notes;” and        -   Icon 546 for a settings application or module, labeled            “Settings,” which provides access to settings for device 200            and its various applications 236.

It should be noted that the icon labels illustrated in FIG. 5A aremerely exemplary. For example, icon 522 for video and music playermodule 252 is optionally labeled “Music” or “Music Player.” Other labelsare, optionally, used for various application icons. In someembodiments, a label for a respective application icon includes a nameof an application corresponding to the respective application icon. Insome embodiments, a label for a particular application icon is distinctfrom a name of an application corresponding to the particularapplication icon.

FIG. 5B illustrates an exemplary user interface on a device (e.g.,device 400, FIG. 4) with a touch-sensitive surface 551 (e.g., a tabletor touchpad 455, FIG. 4) that is separate from the display 550 (e.g.,touch screen display 212). Device 400 also, optionally, includes one ormore contact intensity sensors (e.g., one or more of sensors 457) fordetecting intensity of contacts on touch-sensitive surface 551 and/orone or more tactile output generators 459 for generating tactile outputsfor a user of device 400.

Although some of the examples which follow will be given with referenceto inputs on touch screen display 212 (where the touch-sensitive surfaceand the display are combined), in some embodiments, the device detectsinputs on a touch-sensitive surface that is separate from the display,as shown in FIG. 5B. In some embodiments, the touch-sensitive surface(e.g., 551 in FIG. 5B) has a primary axis (e.g., 552 in FIG. 5B) thatcorresponds to a primary axis (e.g., 553 in FIG. 5B) on the display(e.g., 550). In accordance with these embodiments, the device detectscontacts (e.g., 560 and 562 in FIG. 5B) with the touch-sensitive surface551 at locations that correspond to respective locations on the display(e.g., in FIG. 5B, 560 corresponds to 568 and 562 corresponds to 570).In this way, user inputs (e.g., contacts 560 and 562, and movementsthereof) detected by the device on the touch-sensitive surface (e.g.,551 in FIG. 5B) are used by the device to manipulate the user interfaceon the display (e.g., 550 in FIG. 5B) of the multifunction device whenthe touch-sensitive surface is separate from the display. It should beunderstood that similar methods are, optionally, used for other userinterfaces described herein.

Additionally, while the following examples are given primarily withreference to finger inputs (e.g., finger contacts, finger tap gestures,finger swipe gestures), it should be understood that, in someembodiments, one or more of the finger inputs are replaced with inputfrom another input device (e.g., a mouse-based input or stylus input).For example, a swipe gesture is, optionally, replaced with a mouse click(e.g., instead of a contact) followed by movement of the cursor alongthe path of the swipe (e.g., instead of movement of the contact). Asanother example, a tap gesture is, optionally, replaced with a mouseclick while the cursor is located over the location of the tap gesture(e.g., instead of detection of the contact followed by ceasing to detectthe contact). Similarly, when multiple user inputs are simultaneouslydetected, it should be understood that multiple computer mice are,optionally, used simultaneously, or a mouse and finger contacts are,optionally, used simultaneously.

FIG. 6A illustrates exemplary personal electronic device 600. Device 600includes body 602. In some embodiments, device 600 includes some or allof the features described with respect to devices 200 and 400 (e.g.,FIGS. 2A-4). In some embodiments, device 600 has touch-sensitive displayscreen 604, hereafter touch screen 604. Alternatively, or in addition totouch screen 604, device 600 has a display and a touch-sensitivesurface. As with devices 200 and 400, in some embodiments, touch screen604 (or the touch-sensitive surface) has one or more intensity sensorsfor detecting intensity of contacts (e.g., touches) being applied. Theone or more intensity sensors of touch screen 604 (or thetouch-sensitive surface) provide output data that represents theintensity of touches. The user interface of device 600 responds totouches based on their intensity, meaning that touches of differentintensities can invoke different user interface operations on device600.

Techniques for detecting and processing touch intensity are found, forexample, in related applications: International Patent ApplicationSerial No. PCT/US2013/040061, titled “Device, Method, and Graphical UserInterface for Displaying User Interface Objects Corresponding to anApplication,” filed May 8, 2013, and International Patent ApplicationSerial No. PCT/US2013/069483, titled “Device, Method, and Graphical UserInterface for Transitioning Between Touch Input to Display OutputRelationships,” filed Nov. 11, 2013, each of which is herebyincorporated by reference in their entirety.

In some embodiments, device 600 has one or more input mechanisms 606 and608. Input mechanisms 606 and 608, if included, are physical. Examplesof physical input mechanisms include push buttons and rotatablemechanisms. In some embodiments, device 600 has one or more attachmentmechanisms. Such attachment mechanisms, if included, can permitattachment of device 600 with, for example, hats, eyewear, earrings,necklaces, shirts, jackets, bracelets, watch straps, chains, trousers,belts, shoes, purses, backpacks, and so forth. These attachmentmechanisms permit device 600 to be worn by a user.

FIG. 6B depicts exemplary personal electronic device 600. In someembodiments, device 600 includes some or all of the components describedwith respect to FIGS. 2A, 2B, and 4. Device 600 has bus 612 thatoperatively couples I/O section 614 with one or more computer processors616 and memory 618. I/O section 614 is connected to display 604, whichcan have touch-sensitive component 622 and, optionally, touch-intensitysensitive component 624. In addition, I/O section 614 is connected withcommunication unit 630 for receiving application and operating systemdata, using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, near field communication (NFC), cellular,and/or other wireless communication techniques. Device 600 includesinput mechanisms 606 and/or 608. Input mechanism 606 is a rotatableinput device or a depressible and rotatable input device, for example.Input mechanism 608 is a button, in some examples.

Input mechanism 608 is a microphone, in some examples. Personalelectronic device 600 includes, for example, various sensors, such asGPS sensor 632, accelerometer 634, directional sensor 640 (e.g.,compass), gyroscope 636, motion sensor 638, and/or a combinationthereof, all of which are operatively connected to I/O section 614.

Memory 618 of personal electronic device 600 is a non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium, for storing computer-executableinstructions, which, when executed by one or more computer processors616, for example, cause the computer processors to perform thetechniques and processes described below. The computer-executableinstructions, for example, are also stored and/or transported within anynon-transitory computer-readable storage medium for use by or inconnection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device,such as a computer-based system, processor-containing system, or othersystem that can fetch the instructions from the instruction executionsystem, apparatus, or device and execute the instructions. Personalelectronic device 600 is not limited to the components and configurationof FIG. 6B, but can include other or additional components in multipleconfigurations.

As used here, the term “affordance” refers to a user-interactivegraphical user interface object that is, for example, displayed on thedisplay screen of devices 200, 400, and/or 600 (FIGS. 2A, 4, and 6A-6B).For example, an image (e.g., icon), a button, and text (e.g., hyperlink)each constitutes an affordance.

As used herein, the term “focus selector” refers to an input elementthat indicates a current part of a user interface with which a user isinteracting. In some implementations that include a cursor or otherlocation marker, the cursor acts as a “focus selector” so that when aninput (e.g., a press input) is detected on a touch-sensitive surface(e.g., touchpad 455 in FIG. 4 or touch-sensitive surface 551 in FIG. 5B)while the cursor is over a particular user interface element (e.g., abutton, window, slider or other user interface element), the particularuser interface element is adjusted in accordance with the detectedinput. In some implementations that include a touch screen display(e.g., touch-sensitive display system 212 in FIG. 2A or touch screen 212in FIG. 5A) that enables direct interaction with user interface elementson the touch screen display, a detected contact on the touch screen actsas a “focus selector” so that when an input (e.g., a press input by thecontact) is detected on the touch screen display at a location of aparticular user interface element (e.g., a button, window, slider, orother user interface element), the particular user interface element isadjusted in accordance with the detected input. In some implementations,focus is moved from one region of a user interface to another region ofthe user interface without corresponding movement of a cursor ormovement of a contact on a touch screen display (e.g., by using a tabkey or arrow keys to move focus from one button to another button); inthese implementations, the focus selector moves in accordance withmovement of focus between different regions of the user interface.Without regard to the specific form taken by the focus selector, thefocus selector is generally the user interface element (or contact on atouch screen display) that is controlled by the user so as tocommunicate the user's intended interaction with the user interface(e.g., by indicating, to the device, the element of the user interfacewith which the user is intending to interact). For example, the locationof a focus selector (e.g., a cursor, a contact, or a selection box) overa respective button while a press input is detected on thetouch-sensitive surface (e.g., a touchpad or touch screen) will indicatethat the user is intending to activate the respective button (as opposedto other user interface elements shown on a display of the device).

As used in the specification and claims, the term “characteristicintensity” of a contact refers to a characteristic of the contact basedon one or more intensities of the contact. In some embodiments, thecharacteristic intensity is based on multiple intensity samples. Thecharacteristic intensity is, optionally, based on a predefined number ofintensity samples, or a set of intensity samples collected during apredetermined time period (e.g., 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10seconds) relative to a predefined event (e.g., after detecting thecontact, prior to detecting liftoff of the contact, before or afterdetecting a start of movement of the contact, prior to detecting an endof the contact, before or after detecting an increase in intensity ofthe contact, and/or before or after detecting a decrease in intensity ofthe contact). A characteristic intensity of a contact is, optionallybased on one or more of: a maximum value of the intensities of thecontact, a mean value of the intensities of the contact, an averagevalue of the intensities of the contact, a top 10 percentile value ofthe intensities of the contact, a value at the half maximum of theintensities of the contact, a value at the 90 percent maximum of theintensities of the contact, or the like. In some embodiments, theduration of the contact is used in determining the characteristicintensity (e.g., when the characteristic intensity is an average of theintensity of the contact over time). In some embodiments, thecharacteristic intensity is compared to a set of one or more intensitythresholds to determine whether an operation has been performed by auser. For example, the set of one or more intensity thresholds includesa first intensity threshold and a second intensity threshold. In thisexample, a contact with a characteristic intensity that does not exceedthe first threshold results in a first operation, a contact with acharacteristic intensity that exceeds the first intensity threshold anddoes not exceed the second intensity threshold results in a secondoperation, and a contact with a characteristic intensity that exceedsthe second threshold results in a third operation. In some embodiments,a comparison between the characteristic intensity and one or morethresholds is used to determine whether or not to perform one or moreoperations (e.g., whether to perform a respective operation or forgoperforming the respective operation) rather than being used to determinewhether to perform a first operation or a second operation.

In some embodiments, a portion of a gesture is identified for purposesof determining a characteristic intensity. For example, atouch-sensitive surface receives a continuous swipe contacttransitioning from a start location and reaching an end location, atwhich point the intensity of the contact increases. In this example, thecharacteristic intensity of the contact at the end location is based ononly a portion of the continuous swipe contact, and not the entire swipecontact (e.g., only the portion of the swipe contact at the endlocation). In some embodiments, a smoothing algorithm is applied to theintensities of the swipe contact prior to determining the characteristicintensity of the contact. For example, the smoothing algorithmoptionally includes one or more of: an unweighted sliding-averagesmoothing algorithm, a triangular smoothing algorithm, a median filtersmoothing algorithm, and/or an exponential smoothing algorithm. In somecircumstances, these smoothing algorithms eliminate narrow spikes ordips in the intensities of the swipe contact for purposes of determininga characteristic intensity.

The intensity of a contact on the touch-sensitive surface ischaracterized relative to one or more intensity thresholds, such as acontact-detection intensity threshold, a light press intensitythreshold, a deep press intensity threshold, and/or one or more otherintensity thresholds. In some embodiments, the light press intensitythreshold corresponds to an intensity at which the device will performoperations typically associated with clicking a button of a physicalmouse or a trackpad. In some embodiments, the deep press intensitythreshold corresponds to an intensity at which the device will performoperations that are different from operations typically associated withclicking a button of a physical mouse or a trackpad. In someembodiments, when a contact is detected with a characteristic intensitybelow the light press intensity threshold (e.g., and above a nominalcontact-detection intensity threshold below which the contact is nolonger detected), the device will move a focus selector in accordancewith movement of the contact on the touch-sensitive surface withoutperforming an operation associated with the light press intensitythreshold or the deep press intensity threshold. Generally, unlessotherwise stated, these intensity thresholds are consistent betweendifferent sets of user interface figures.

An increase of characteristic intensity of the contact from an intensitybelow the light press intensity threshold to an intensity between thelight press intensity threshold and the deep press intensity thresholdis sometimes referred to as a “light press” input. An increase ofcharacteristic intensity of the contact from an intensity below the deeppress intensity threshold to an intensity above the deep press intensitythreshold is sometimes referred to as a “deep press” input. An increaseof characteristic intensity of the contact from an intensity below thecontact-detection intensity threshold to an intensity between thecontact-detection intensity threshold and the light press intensitythreshold is sometimes referred to as detecting the contact on thetouch-surface. A decrease of characteristic intensity of the contactfrom an intensity above the contact-detection intensity threshold to anintensity below the contact-detection intensity threshold is sometimesreferred to as detecting liftoff of the contact from the touch-surface.In some embodiments, the contact-detection intensity threshold is zero.In some embodiments, the contact-detection intensity threshold isgreater than zero.

In some embodiments described herein, one or more operations areperformed in response to detecting a gesture that includes a respectivepress input or in response to detecting the respective press inputperformed with a respective contact (or a plurality of contacts), wherethe respective press input is detected based at least in part ondetecting an increase in intensity of the contact (or plurality ofcontacts) above a press-input intensity threshold. In some embodiments,the respective operation is performed in response to detecting theincrease in intensity of the respective contact above the press-inputintensity threshold (e.g., a “down stroke” of the respective pressinput). In some embodiments, the press input includes an increase inintensity of the respective contact above the press-input intensitythreshold and a subsequent decrease in intensity of the contact belowthe press-input intensity threshold, and the respective operation isperformed in response to detecting the subsequent decrease in intensityof the respective contact below the press-input threshold (e.g., an “upstroke” of the respective press input).

In some embodiments, the device employs intensity hysteresis to avoidaccidental inputs sometimes termed “jitter,” where the device defines orselects a hysteresis intensity threshold with a predefined relationshipto the press-input intensity threshold (e.g., the hysteresis intensitythreshold is X intensity units lower than the press-input intensitythreshold or the hysteresis intensity threshold is 75%, 90%, or somereasonable proportion of the press-input intensity threshold). Thus, insome embodiments, the press input includes an increase in intensity ofthe respective contact above the press-input intensity threshold and asubsequent decrease in intensity of the contact below the hysteresisintensity threshold that corresponds to the press-input intensitythreshold, and the respective operation is performed in response todetecting the subsequent decrease in intensity of the respective contactbelow the hysteresis intensity threshold (e.g., an “up stroke” of therespective press input). Similarly, in some embodiments, the press inputis detected only when the device detects an increase in intensity of thecontact from an intensity at or below the hysteresis intensity thresholdto an intensity at or above the press-input intensity threshold and,optionally, a subsequent decrease in intensity of the contact to anintensity at or below the hysteresis intensity, and the respectiveoperation is performed in response to detecting the press input (e.g.,the increase in intensity of the contact or the decrease in intensity ofthe contact, depending on the circumstances).

For ease of explanation, the descriptions of operations performed inresponse to a press input associated with a press-input intensitythreshold or in response to a gesture including the press input are,optionally, triggered in response to detecting either: an increase inintensity of a contact above the press-input intensity threshold, anincrease in intensity of a contact from an intensity below thehysteresis intensity threshold to an intensity above the press-inputintensity threshold, a decrease in intensity of the contact below thepress-input intensity threshold, and/or a decrease in intensity of thecontact below the hysteresis intensity threshold corresponding to thepress-input intensity threshold. Additionally, in examples where anoperation is described as being performed in response to detecting adecrease in intensity of a contact below the press-input intensitythreshold, the operation is, optionally, performed in response todetecting a decrease in intensity of the contact below a hysteresisintensity threshold corresponding to, and lower than, the press-inputintensity threshold.

3. Digital Assistant System

FIG. 7A illustrates a block diagram of digital assistant system 700 inaccordance with various examples. In some examples, digital assistantsystem 700 is implemented on a standalone computer system. In someexamples, digital assistant system 700 is distributed across multiplecomputers. In some examples, some of the modules and functions of thedigital assistant are divided into a server portion and a clientportion, where the client portion resides on one or more user devices(e.g., devices 104, 122, 200, 400, or 600) and communicates with theserver portion (e.g., server system 108) through one or more networks,e.g., as shown in FIG. 1. In some examples, digital assistant system 700is an implementation of server system 108 (and/or DA server 106) shownin FIG. 1. It should be noted that digital assistant system 700 is onlyone example of a digital assistant system, and that digital assistantsystem 700 can have more or fewer components than shown, can combine twoor more components, or can have a different configuration or arrangementof the components. The various components shown in FIG. 7A areimplemented in hardware, software instructions for execution by one ormore processors, firmware, including one or more signal processingand/or application specific integrated circuits, or a combinationthereof.

Digital assistant system 700 includes memory 702, one or more processors704, input/output (I/O) interface 706, and network communicationsinterface 708. These components can communicate with one another overone or more communication buses or signal lines 710.

In some examples, memory 702 includes a non-transitory computer-readablemedium, such as high-speed random access memory and/or a non-volatilecomputer-readable storage medium (e.g., one or more magnetic diskstorage devices, flash memory devices, or other non-volatile solid-statememory devices).

In some examples, I/O interface 706 couples input/output devices 716 ofdigital assistant system 700, such as displays, keyboards, touchscreens, and microphones, to user interface module 722. I/O interface706, in conjunction with user interface module 722, receives user inputs(e.g., voice input, keyboard inputs, touch inputs, etc.) and processesthem accordingly. In some examples, e.g., when the digital assistant isimplemented on a standalone user device, digital assistant system 700includes any of the components and I/O communication interfacesdescribed with respect to devices 200, 400, or 600 in FIGS. 2A, 4, 6A,respectively. In some examples, digital assistant system 700 representsthe server portion of a digital assistant implementation, and caninteract with the user through a client-side portion residing on a userdevice (e.g., devices 104, 200, 400, or 600).

In some examples, the network communications interface 708 includeswired communication port(s) 712 and/or wireless transmission andreception circuitry 714. The wired communication port(s) receives andsend communication signals via one or more wired interfaces, e.g.,Ethernet, Universal Serial Bus (USB), FIREWIRE, etc. The wirelesscircuitry 714 receives and sends RF signals and/or optical signalsfrom/to communications networks and other communications devices. Thewireless communications use any of a plurality of communicationsstandards, protocols, and technologies, such as GSM, EDGE, CDMA, TDMA,Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, VoIP, Wi-MAX, or any other suitable communicationprotocol. Network communications interface 708 enables communicationbetween digital assistant system 700 with networks, such as theInternet, an intranet, and/or a wireless network, such as a cellulartelephone network, a wireless local area network (LAN), and/or ametropolitan area network (MAN), and other devices.

In some examples, memory 702, or the computer-readable storage media ofmemory 702, stores programs, modules, instructions, and data structuresincluding all or a subset of: operating system 718, communicationsmodule 720, user interface module 722, one or more applications 724, anddigital assistant module 726. In particular, memory 702, or thecomputer-readable storage media of memory 702, stores instructions forperforming the processes described below. One or more processors 704execute these programs, modules, and instructions, and reads/writesfrom/to the data structures.

Operating system 718 (e.g., Darwin, RTXC, LINUX, UNIX, iOS, OS X,WINDOWS, or an embedded operating system such as VxWorks) includesvarious software components and/or drivers for controlling and managinggeneral system tasks (e.g., memory management, storage device control,power management, etc.) and facilitates communications between varioushardware, firmware, and software components.

Communications module 720 facilitates communications between digitalassistant system 700 with other devices over network communicationsinterface 708. For example, communications module 720 communicates withRF circuitry 208 of electronic devices such as devices 200, 400, and 600shown in FIGS. 2A, 4, 6A-6B, respectively. Communications module 720also includes various components for handling data received by wirelesscircuitry 714 and/or wired communications port 712.

User interface module 722 receives commands and/or inputs from a uservia I/O interface 706 (e.g., from a keyboard, touch screen, pointingdevice, controller, and/or microphone), and generate user interfaceobjects on a display. User interface module 722 also prepares anddelivers outputs (e.g., speech, sound, animation, text, icons,vibrations, haptic feedback, light, etc.) to the user via the I/Ointerface 706 (e.g., through displays, audio channels, speakers,touch-pads, etc.).

Applications 724 include programs and/or modules that are configured tobe executed by one or more processors 704. For example, if the digitalassistant system is implemented on a standalone user device,applications 724 include user applications, such as games, a calendarapplication, a navigation application, or an email application. Ifdigital assistant system 700 is implemented on a server, applications724 include resource management applications, diagnostic applications,or scheduling applications, for example.

Memory 702 also stores digital assistant module 726 (or the serverportion of a digital assistant). In some examples, digital assistantmodule 726 includes the following sub-modules, or a subset or supersetthereof: input/output processing module 728, speech-to-text (STT)processing module 730, natural language processing module 732, dialogueflow processing module 734, task flow processing module 736, serviceprocessing module 738, and speech synthesis processing module 740. Eachof these modules has access to one or more of the following systems ordata and models of the digital assistant module 726, or a subset orsuperset thereof: ontology 760, vocabulary index 744, user data 748,task flow models 754, service models 756, and ASR systems 758.

In some examples, using the processing modules, data, and modelsimplemented in digital assistant module 726, the digital assistant canperform at least some of the following: converting speech input intotext; identifying a user's intent expressed in a natural language inputreceived from the user; actively eliciting and obtaining informationneeded to fully infer the user's intent (e.g., by disambiguating words,games, intentions, etc.); determining the task flow for fulfilling theinferred intent; and executing the task flow to fulfill the inferredintent.

In some examples, as shown in FIG. 7B, I/O processing module 728interacts with the user through I/O devices 716 in FIG. 7A or with auser device (e.g., devices 104, 200, 400, or 600) through networkcommunications interface 708 in FIG. 7A to obtain user input (e.g., aspeech input) and to provide responses (e.g., as speech outputs) to theuser input. I/O processing module 728 optionally obtains contextualinformation associated with the user input from the user device, alongwith or shortly after the receipt of the user input. The contextualinformation includes user-specific data, vocabulary, and/or preferencesrelevant to the user input. In some examples, the contextual informationalso includes software and hardware states of the user device at thetime the user request is received, and/or information related to thesurrounding environment of the user at the time that the user requestwas received. In some examples, I/O processing module 728 also sendsfollow-up questions to, and receive answers from, the user regarding theuser request. When a user request is received by I/O processing module728 and the user request includes speech input, I/O processing module728 forwards the speech input to STT processing module 730 (or speechrecognizer) for speech-to-text conversions.

STT processing module 730 includes one or more ASR systems 758. The oneor more ASR systems 758 can process the speech input that is receivedthrough I/O processing module 728 to produce a recognition result. EachASR system 758 includes a front-end speech pre-processor. The front-endspeech pre-processor extracts representative features from the speechinput. For example, the front-end speech pre-processor performs aFourier transform on the speech input to extract spectral features thatcharacterize the speech input as a sequence of representativemulti-dimensional vectors. Further, each ASR system 758 includes one ormore speech recognition models (e.g., acoustic models and/or languagemodels) and implements one or more speech recognition engines. Examplesof speech recognition models include Hidden Markov Models,Gaussian-Mixture Models, Deep Neural Network Models, n-gram languagemodels, and other statistical models. Examples of speech recognitionengines include the dynamic time warping based engines and weightedfinite-state transducers (WFST) based engines. The one or more speechrecognition models and the one or more speech recognition engines areused to process the extracted representative features of the front-endspeech pre-processor to produce intermediate recognitions results (e.g.,phonemes, phonemic strings, and sub-words), and ultimately, textrecognition results (e.g., words, word strings, or sequence of tokens).In some examples, the speech input is processed at least partially by athird-party service or on the user's device (e.g., device 104, 200, 400,or 600) to produce the recognition result. Once STT processing module730 produces recognition results containing a text string (e.g., words,or sequence of words, or sequence of tokens), the recognition result ispassed to natural language processing module 732 for intent deduction.In some examples, STT processing module 730 produces multiple candidatetext representations of the speech input. Each candidate textrepresentation is a sequence of words or tokens corresponding to thespeech input. In some examples, each candidate text representation isassociated with a speech recognition confidence score. Based on thespeech recognition confidence scores, STT processing module 730 ranksthe candidate text representations and provides the n-best (e.g., nhighest ranked) candidate text representation(s) to natural languageprocessing module 732 for intent deduction, where n is a predeterminedinteger greater than zero. For example, in one example, only the highestranked (n=1) candidate text representation is passed to natural languageprocessing module 732 for intent deduction. In another example, the fivehighest ranked (n=5) candidate text representations are passed tonatural language processing module 732 for intent deduction.

More details on the speech-to-text processing are described in U.S.Utility application Ser. No. 13/236,942 for “Consolidating SpeechRecognition Results,” filed on Sep. 20, 2011, the entire disclosure ofwhich is incorporated herein by reference.

In some examples, STT processing module 730 includes and/or accesses avocabulary of recognizable words via phonetic alphabet conversion module731. Each vocabulary word is associated with one or more candidatepronunciations of the word represented in a speech recognition phoneticalphabet. In particular, the vocabulary of recognizable words includes aword that is associated with a plurality of candidate pronunciations.For example, the vocabulary includes the word “tomato” that isassociated with the candidate pronunciations of /

/ and /

/. Further, vocabulary words are associated with custom candidatepronunciations that are based on previous speech inputs from the user.Such custom candidate pronunciations are stored in STT processing module730 and are associated with a particular user via the user's profile onthe device. In some examples, the candidate pronunciations for words aredetermined based on the spelling of the word and one or more linguisticand/or phonetic rules. In some examples, the candidate pronunciationsare manually generated, e.g., based on known canonical pronunciations.

In some examples, the candidate pronunciations are ranked based on thecommonness of the candidate pronunciation. For example, the candidatepronunciation /

/ is ranked higher than /

/, because the former is a more commonly used pronunciation (e.g., amongall users, for users in a particular geographical region, or for anyother appropriate subset of users). In some examples, candidatepronunciations are ranked based on whether the candidate pronunciationis a custom candidate pronunciation associated with the user. Forexample, custom candidate pronunciations are ranked higher thancanonical candidate pronunciations. This can be useful for recognizingproper nouns having a unique pronunciation that deviates from canonicalpronunciation. In some examples, candidate pronunciations are associatedwith one or more speech characteristics, such as geographic origin,nationality, or ethnicity. For example, the candidate pronunciation /

/ is associated with the United States, whereas the candidatepronunciation /

/ is associated with Great Britain. Further, the rank of the candidatepronunciation is based on one or more characteristics (e.g., geographicorigin, nationality, ethnicity, etc.) of the user stored in the user'sprofile on the device. For example, it can be determined from the user'sprofile that the user is associated with the United States. Based on theuser being associated with the United States, the candidatepronunciation /

/ (associated with the United States) is ranked higher than thecandidate pronunciation /

/ (associated with Great Britain). In some examples, one of the rankedcandidate pronunciations is selected as a predicted pronunciation (e.g.,the most likely pronunciation).

When a speech input is received, STT processing module 730 is used todetermine the phonemes corresponding to the speech input (e.g., using anacoustic model), and then attempt to determine words that match thephonemes (e.g., using a language model). For example, if STT processingmodule 730 first identifies the sequence of phonemes /

/ corresponding to a portion of the speech input, it can then determine,based on vocabulary index 744, that this sequence corresponds to theword “tomato.”

In some examples, STT processing module 730 uses approximate matchingtechniques to determine words in an utterance. Thus, for example, theSTT processing module 730 determines that the sequence of phonemes /

/ corresponds to the word “tomato,” even if that particular sequence ofphonemes is not one of the candidate sequence of phonemes for that word.

Natural language processing module 732 (“natural language processor”) ofthe digital assistant takes the n-best candidate text representation(s)(“word sequence(s)” or “token sequence(s)”) generated by STT processingmodule 730, and attempts to associate each of the candidate textrepresentations with one or more “actionable intents” recognized by thedigital assistant. An “actionable intent” (or “user intent”) representsa task that can be performed by the digital assistant, and can have anassociated task flow implemented in task flow models 754. The associatedtask flow is a series of programmed actions and steps that the digitalassistant takes in order to perform the task. The scope of a digitalassistant's capabilities is dependent on the number and variety of taskflows that have been implemented and stored in task flow models 754, orin other words, on the number and variety of “actionable intents” thatthe digital assistant recognizes. The effectiveness of the digitalassistant, however, also dependents on the assistant's ability to inferthe correct “actionable intent(s)” from the user request expressed innatural language.

In some examples, in addition to the sequence of words or tokensobtained from STT processing module 730, natural language processingmodule 732 also receives contextual information associated with the userrequest, e.g., from I/O processing module 728. The natural languageprocessing module 732 optionally uses the contextual information toclarify, supplement, and/or further define the information contained inthe candidate text representations received from STT processing module730. The contextual information includes, for example, user preferences,hardware, and/or software states of the user device, sensor informationcollected before, during, or shortly after the user request, priorinteractions (e.g., dialogue) between the digital assistant and theuser, and the like. As described herein, contextual information is, insome examples, dynamic, and changes with time, location, content of thedialogue, and other factors.

In some examples, the natural language processing is based on, e.g.,ontology 760. Ontology 760 is a hierarchical structure containing manynodes, each node representing either an “actionable intent” or a“property” relevant to one or more of the “actionable intents” or other“properties.” As noted above, an “actionable intent” represents a taskthat the digital assistant is capable of performing, i.e., it is“actionable” or can be acted on. A “property” represents a parameterassociated with an actionable intent or a sub-aspect of anotherproperty. A linkage between an actionable intent node and a propertynode in ontology 760 defines how a parameter represented by the propertynode pertains to the task represented by the actionable intent node.

In some examples, ontology 760 is made up of actionable intent nodes andproperty nodes. Within ontology 760, each actionable intent node islinked to one or more property nodes either directly or through one ormore intermediate property nodes. Similarly, each property node islinked to one or more actionable intent nodes either directly or throughone or more intermediate property nodes. For example, as shown in FIG.7C, ontology 760 includes a “restaurant reservation” node (i.e., anactionable intent node). Property nodes “restaurant,” “date/time” (forthe reservation), and “party size” are each directly linked to theactionable intent node (i.e., the “restaurant reservation” node).

In addition, property nodes “cuisine,” “price range,” “phone number,”and “location” are sub-nodes of the property node “restaurant,” and areeach linked to the “restaurant reservation” node (i.e., the actionableintent node) through the intermediate property node “restaurant.” Foranother example, as shown in FIG. 7C, ontology 760 also includes a “setreminder” node (i.e., another actionable intent node). Property nodes“date/time” (for setting the reminder) and “subject” (for the reminder)are each linked to the “set reminder” node. Since the property“date/time” is relevant to both the task of making a restaurantreservation and the task of setting a reminder, the property node“date/time” is linked to both the “restaurant reservation” node and the“set reminder” node in ontology 760.

An actionable intent node, along with its linked property nodes, isdescribed as a “domain,” which represents a particular concept. In thepresent discussion, each domain is associated with a respectiveactionable intent, and refers to the group of nodes (and therelationships there between) associated with the particular actionableintent. For example, ontology 760 shown in FIG. 7C includes an exampleof restaurant reservation domain 762 and an example of reminder domain764 within ontology 760. Restaurant reservation domain 762 representsthe concept of making a restaurant reservation. The restaurantreservation domain includes the actionable intent node “restaurantreservation,” property nodes “restaurant,” “date/time,” and “partysize,” and sub-property nodes “cuisine,” “price range,” “phone number,”and “location.” Reminder domain 762 represents the concept of settingand providing reminders. Reminder domain 764 includes the actionableintent node “set reminder,” and property nodes “subject” and“date/time.” In some examples, ontology 760 is made up of many domains.Each domain shares one or more property nodes with one or more otherdomains. For example, the “date/time” property node is associated withmany different domains (e.g., a scheduling domain, a travel reservationdomain, a movie ticket domain, etc.), in addition to restaurantreservation domain 762 and reminder domain 764.

While FIG. 7C illustrates two example domains within ontology 760, otherdomains include, for example, “find a movie,” “place a phone call,”“find directions,” “schedule a meeting,” “send a message,” and “providean answer to a question,” “read a list,” “providing navigationinstructions,” “provide instructions for a task” and so on. A “send amessage” domain is associated with a “send a message” actionable intentnode, and further includes property nodes such as “recipient(s),”“message type,” and “message body.” The property node “recipient” isfurther defined, for example, by the sub-property nodes such as“recipient name” and “message address.”

In some examples, ontology 760 includes all the domains (and henceactionable intents) that the digital assistant is capable ofunderstanding and acting upon. In some examples, ontology 760 ismodified, such as by adding or removing entire domains or nodes, or bymodifying relationships between the nodes within the ontology 760.

In some examples, nodes associated with multiple related actionableintents are clustered under a “super domain” in ontology 760. Forexample, a “travel” super-domain includes a cluster of property nodesand actionable intent nodes related to travel. The actionable intentnodes related to travel includes “airline reservation,” “hotelreservation,” “car rental,” “get directions,” “find points of interest,”and so on. The actionable intent nodes under the same super domain(e.g., the “travel” super domain) have many property nodes in common.For example, the actionable intent nodes for “airline reservation,”“hotel reservation,” “car rental,” “get directions,” and “find points ofinterest” share one or more of the property nodes “start location,”“destination,” “departure date/time,” “arrival date/time,” and “partysize.”

In some examples, each node in ontology 760 is associated with a set ofwords and/or phrases that are relevant to the property or actionableintent represented by the node. The respective set of words and/orphrases associated with each node are the so-called “vocabulary”associated with the node. The respective set of words and/or phrasesassociated with each node are stored in vocabulary index 744 inassociation with the property or actionable intent represented by thenode. For example, returning to FIG. 7B, the vocabulary associated withthe node for the property of “restaurant” includes words such as “food,”“drinks,” “cuisine,” “hungry,” “eat,” “pizza,” “fast food,” “meal,” andso on. For another example, the vocabulary associated with the node forthe actionable intent of “initiate a phone call” includes words andphrases such as “call,” “phone,” “dial,” “ring,” “call this number,”“make a call to,” and so on. The vocabulary index 744 optionallyincludes words and phrases in different languages.

Natural language processing module 732 receives the candidate textrepresentations (e.g., text string(s) or token sequence(s)) from STTprocessing module 730, and for each candidate representation, determineswhat nodes are implicated by the words in the candidate textrepresentation. In some examples, if a word or phrase in the candidatetext representation is found to be associated with one or more nodes inontology 760 (via vocabulary index 744), the word or phrase “triggers”or “activates” those nodes. Based on the quantity and/or relativeimportance of the activated nodes, natural language processing module732 selects one of the actionable intents as the task that the userintended the digital assistant to perform. In some examples, the domainthat has the most “triggered” nodes is selected. In some examples, thedomain having the highest confidence value (e.g., based on the relativeimportance of its various triggered nodes) is selected. In someexamples, the domain is selected based on a combination of the numberand the importance of the triggered nodes. In some examples, additionalfactors are considered in selecting the node as well, such as whetherthe digital assistant has previously correctly interpreted a similarrequest from a user.

User data 748 includes user-specific information, such as user-specificvocabulary, user preferences, user address, user's default and secondarylanguages, user's contact list, and other short-term or long-terminformation for each user. In some examples, natural language processingmodule 732 uses the user-specific information to supplement theinformation contained in the user input to further define the userintent. For example, for a user request “invite my friends to mybirthday party,” natural language processing module 732 is able toaccess user data 748 to determine who the “friends” are and when andwhere the “birthday party” would be held, rather than requiring the userto provide such information explicitly in his/her request.

It should be recognized that in some examples, natural languageprocessing module 732 is implemented using one or more machine learningmechanisms (e.g., neural networks). In particular, the one or moremachine learning mechanisms are configured to receive a candidate textrepresentation and contextual information associated with the candidatetext representation. Based on the candidate text representation and theassociated contextual information, the one or more machine learningmechanisms are configured to determine intent confidence scores over aset of candidate actionable intents. Natural language processing module732 can select one or more candidate actionable intents from the set ofcandidate actionable intents based on the determined intent confidencescores. In some examples, an ontology (e.g., ontology 760) is also usedto select the one or more candidate actionable intents from the set ofcandidate actionable intents.

Other details of searching an ontology based on a token string aredescribed in U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 12/341,743 for “Methodand Apparatus for Searching Using An Active Ontology,” filed Dec. 22,2008, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein byreference.

In some examples, once natural language processing module 732 identifiesan actionable intent (or domain) based on the user request, naturallanguage processing module 732 generates a structured query to representthe identified actionable intent. In some examples, the structured queryincludes parameters for one or more nodes within the domain for theactionable intent, and at least some of the parameters are populatedwith the specific information and requirements specified in the userrequest. For example, the user says “Make me a dinner reservation at asushi place at 7.” In this case, natural language processing module 732is able to correctly identify the actionable intent to be “restaurantreservation” based on the user input. According to the ontology, astructured query for a “restaurant reservation” domain includesparameters such as {Cuisine}, {Time}, {Date}, {Party Size}, and thelike. In some examples, based on the speech input and the text derivedfrom the speech input using STT processing module 730, natural languageprocessing module 732 generates a partial structured query for therestaurant reservation domain, where the partial structured queryincludes the parameters {Cuisine=“Sushi”} and {Time=“7 pm”}. However, inthis example, the user's utterance contains insufficient information tocomplete the structured query associated with the domain. Therefore,other necessary parameters such as {Party Size} and {Date} are notspecified in the structured query based on the information currentlyavailable. In some examples, natural language processing module 732populates some parameters of the structured query with receivedcontextual information. For example, in some examples, if the userrequested a sushi restaurant “near me,” natural language processingmodule 732 populates a {location} parameter in the structured query withGPS coordinates from the user device.

In some examples, natural language processing module 732 identifiesmultiple candidate actionable intents for each candidate textrepresentation received from STT processing module 730. Further, in someexamples, a respective structured query (partial or complete) isgenerated for each identified candidate actionable intent. Naturallanguage processing module 732 determines an intent confidence score foreach candidate actionable intent and ranks the candidate actionableintents based on the intent confidence scores. In some examples, naturallanguage processing module 732 passes the generated structured query (orqueries), including any completed parameters, to task flow processingmodule 736 (“task flow processor”). In some examples, the structuredquery (or queries) for the m-best (e.g., m highest ranked) candidateactionable intents are provided to task flow processing module 736,where m is a predetermined integer greater than zero. In some examples,the structured query (or queries) for the m-best candidate actionableintents are provided to task flow processing module 736 with thecorresponding candidate text representation(s).

Other details of inferring a user intent based on multiple candidateactionable intents determined from multiple candidate textrepresentations of a speech input are described in U.S. Utilityapplication Ser. No. 14/298,725 for “System and Method for InferringUser Intent From Speech Inputs,” filed Jun. 6, 2014, the entiredisclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.

Task flow processing module 736 is configured to receive the structuredquery (or queries) from natural language processing module 732, completethe structured query, if necessary, and perform the actions required to“complete” the user's ultimate request. In some examples, the variousprocedures necessary to complete these tasks are provided in task flowmodels 754. In some examples, task flow models 754 include proceduresfor obtaining additional information from the user and task flows forperforming actions associated with the actionable intent.

As described above, in order to complete a structured query, task flowprocessing module 736 needs to initiate additional dialogue with theuser in order to obtain additional information, and/or disambiguatepotentially ambiguous utterances. When such interactions are necessary,task flow processing module 736 invokes dialogue flow processing module734 to engage in a dialogue with the user. In some examples, dialogueflow processing module 734 determines how (and/or when) to ask the userfor the additional information and receives and processes the userresponses. The questions are provided to and answers are received fromthe users through I/O processing module 728. In some examples, dialogueflow processing module 734 presents dialogue output to the user viaaudio and/or visual output, and receives input from the user via spokenor physical (e.g., clicking) responses. Continuing with the exampleabove, when task flow processing module 736 invokes dialogue flowprocessing module 734 to determine the “party size” and “date”information for the structured query associated with the domain“restaurant reservation,” dialogue flow processing module 734 generatesquestions such as “For how many people?” and “On which day?” to pass tothe user. Once answers are received from the user, dialogue flowprocessing module 734 then populates the structured query with themissing information, or pass the information to task flow processingmodule 736 to complete the missing information from the structuredquery.

Once task flow processing module 736 has completed the structured queryfor an actionable intent, task flow processing module 736 proceeds toperform the ultimate task associated with the actionable intent.Accordingly, task flow processing module 736 executes the steps andinstructions in the task flow model according to the specific parameterscontained in the structured query. For example, the task flow model forthe actionable intent of “restaurant reservation” includes steps andinstructions for contacting a restaurant and actually requesting areservation for a particular party size at a particular time. Forexample, using a structured query such as: {restaurant reservation,restaurant=ABC Café, date=3/12/2012, time=7 pm, party size=5}, task flowprocessing module 736 performs the steps of: (1) logging onto a serverof the ABC Café or a restaurant reservation system such as OPENTABLE®,(2) entering the date, time, and party size information in a form on thewebsite, (3) submitting the form, and (4) making a calendar entry forthe reservation in the user's calendar.

In some examples, task flow processing module 736 employs the assistanceof service processing module 738 (“service processing module”) tocomplete a task requested in the user input or to provide aninformational answer requested in the user input. For example, serviceprocessing module 738 acts on behalf of task flow processing module 736to make a phone call, set a calendar entry, invoke a map search, invokeor interact with other user applications installed on the user device,and invoke or interact with third-party services (e.g., a restaurantreservation portal, a social networking website, a banking portal,etc.). In some examples, the protocols and application programminginterfaces (API) required by each service are specified by a respectiveservice model among service models 756. Service processing module 738accesses the appropriate service model for a service and generatesrequests for the service in accordance with the protocols and APIsrequired by the service according to the service model.

For example, if a restaurant has enabled an online reservation service,the restaurant submits a service model specifying the necessaryparameters for making a reservation and the APIs for communicating thevalues of the necessary parameter to the online reservation service.When requested by task flow processing module 736, service processingmodule 738 establishes a network connection with the online reservationservice using the web address stored in the service model, and sends thenecessary parameters of the reservation (e.g., time, date, party size)to the online reservation interface in a format according to the API ofthe online reservation service.

In some examples, natural language processing module 732, dialogue flowprocessing module 734, and task flow processing module 736 are usedcollectively and iteratively to infer and define the user's intent,obtain information to further clarify and refine the user intent, andfinally generate a response (i.e., an output to the user, or thecompletion of a task) to fulfill the user's intent. The generatedresponse is a dialogue response to the speech input that at leastpartially fulfills the user's intent. Further, in some examples, thegenerated response is output as a speech output. In these examples, thegenerated response is sent to speech synthesis processing module 740(e.g., speech synthesizer) where it can be processed to synthesize thedialogue response in speech form. In yet other examples, the generatedresponse is data content relevant to satisfying a user request in thespeech input.

In examples where task flow processing module 736 receives multiplestructured queries from natural language processing module 732, taskflow processing module 736 initially processes the first structuredquery of the received structured queries to attempt to complete thefirst structured query and/or execute one or more tasks or actionsrepresented by the first structured query. In some examples, the firststructured query corresponds to the highest ranked actionable intent. Inother examples, the first structured query is selected from the receivedstructured queries based on a combination of the corresponding speechrecognition confidence scores and the corresponding intent confidencescores. In some examples, if task flow processing module 736 encountersan error during processing of the first structured query (e.g., due toan inability to determine a necessary parameter), the task flowprocessing module 736 can proceed to select and process a secondstructured query of the received structured queries that corresponds toa lower ranked actionable intent. The second structured query isselected, for example, based on the speech recognition confidence scoreof the corresponding candidate text representation, the intentconfidence score of the corresponding candidate actionable intent, amissing necessary parameter in the first structured query, or anycombination thereof.

Speech synthesis processing module 740 is configured to synthesizespeech outputs for presentation to the user. Speech synthesis processingmodule 740 synthesizes speech outputs based on text provided by thedigital assistant. For example, the generated dialogue response is inthe form of a text string. Speech synthesis processing module 740converts the text string to an audible speech output. Speech synthesisprocessing module 740 uses any appropriate speech synthesis technique inorder to generate speech outputs from text, including, but not limited,to concatenative synthesis, unit selection synthesis, diphone synthesis,domain-specific synthesis, formant synthesis, articulatory synthesis,hidden Markov model (HMM) based synthesis, and sinewave synthesis. Insome examples, speech synthesis processing module 740 is configured tosynthesize individual words based on phonemic strings corresponding tothe words. For example, a phonemic string is associated with a word inthe generated dialogue response. The phonemic string is stored inmetadata associated with the word. Speech synthesis processing module740 is configured to directly process the phonemic string in themetadata to synthesize the word in speech form.

In some examples, instead of (or in addition to) using speech synthesisprocessing module 740, speech synthesis is performed on a remote device(e.g., the server system 108), and the synthesized speech is sent to theuser device for output to the user. For example, this can occur in someimplementations where outputs for a digital assistant are generated at aserver system. And because server systems generally have more processingpower or resources than a user device, it is possible to obtain higherquality speech outputs than would be practical with client-sidesynthesis.

Additional details on digital assistants can be found in the U.S.Utility application Ser. No. 12/987,982, entitled “Intelligent AutomatedAssistant,” filed Jan. 10, 2011, and U.S. Utility application Ser. No.13/251,088, entitled “Generating and Processing Task Items ThatRepresent Tasks to Perform,” filed Sep. 30, 2011, the entire disclosuresof which are incorporated herein by reference.

As described above, ontology 760 can include any number of domainsrepresenting any number of actionable intents. For instance, in someexamples, ontology 760 includes a “telephony” super domain representingconcepts related to telephone functions. The “telephony” super domainincludes, for example, a plurality of actionable intent nodesrepresenting corresponding actionable intents. The actionable intents,for example, correspond to respective functions of a telephoneapplication (e.g., implemented by telephone module 238).

In some examples, the “telephony” super domain includes a “place a call”actionable intent node representing the actionable intent of placing aphone call. The “place a call” actionable intent node is linked to aproperty node representing the {phone number} parameter. The “place acall” actionable intent node corresponds to the task of placing a callto a phone number specified by the {phone number} parameter. In someexamples, the “telephony” super domain further includes a “placeemergency call” actionable intent node representing the actionableintent of placing an emergency call. The “place emergency call”actionable intent node corresponds to the tasks of connecting with adevice having call functionality and causing the device to place a callto an emergency number of the current location (e.g., “911” for UnitedStates or “112” in United Kingdom).

In some examples, the “telephony” super domain includes an “answer call”actionable intent node representing the actionable intent of answeringan incoming call. The “answer call” actionable intent node correspondsto the task of answering an incoming call.

In some examples, the “telephony” super domain includes a “terminatecall” actionable intent node representing the actionable intent ofterminating an active call. The “terminate call” actionable intent nodecorresponds to the task of terminating an active call of a device (e.g.,hanging up).

In some examples, the “telephony” super domain includes a “transmitduel-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) tone” actionable intent noderepresenting the actionable intent of transmitting DTMF tones on anactive call. In some examples, the “transmit DTMF tone” actionableintent node is linked to a property node representing the {characterkey} parameter. The “transmit DTMF tone” actionable intent nodecorresponds to the task of generating and transmitting, on an activecall, DTMF tones corresponding to the character key(s) specified by the{character key} parameter.

In some examples, the “telephony” super domain includes an “answer call”actionable intent node representing the actionable intent of answeringan incoming call. The “answer call” actionable intent node correspondsto the task of answering an incoming call.

In some examples, the “telephony” super domain includes a “terminatecall” actionable intent node representing the actionable intent ofterminating an active call. The “terminate call” actionable intent nodecorresponds to the task of terminating an active call of a device (e.g.,hanging up).

In some examples, the “telephony” super domain includes a “hold call”actionable intent node representing the actionable intent of holding anactive call. The “hold call” actionable intent node corresponds to thetask of placing an active call on hold.

In some examples, the “telephony” super domain includes a “transfercall” actionable intent node representing the actionable intent oftransferring an active call. In some examples, the “transfer call”actionable intent node is linked to a property node representing the{call transfer number} parameter. The “transfer call” actionable intentnode corresponds to the task of transferring an active call to a seconddevice based on a phone number specified by the {call transfer number}parameter.

In some examples, the “telephony” super domain includes a “join call”actionable intent node representing the actionable intent of joining asecond call to an existing active call. In some examples, the “joincall” actionable intent node is linked to a property node representingthe {call join number} parameter. The “join call” actionable intent nodecorresponds to the task of establishing a second active call with asecond device (e.g., by answering an incoming call or dialing a phonenumber specified by the {call join number} parameter) and merging thesecond active call with the existing active call to establish athree-way call.

In some examples, the “telephony” super domain includes a “playvoicemail” actionable intent node representing the actionable intent ofplaying recent voicemails. The “play voicemail” actionable intent nodecorresponds to the task of obtaining and playing the N most recentvoicemails (where N is a predefined positive integer).

In some examples, the “telephony” super domain includes a “list missedcalls” actionable intent node representing the actionable intent ofpresenting a list of recent missed calls. The “list missed calls”actionable intent node corresponds to the task of obtaining andpresenting call information for the N most recent missed call (where Nis a predefined positive integer).

FIGS. 8-11 illustrate various techniques for using voice interaction ata primary device to access call functionality of a companion device,according to various examples. It should be recognized that, in someexamples, the individual aspects described in FIGS. 8-11 can be combinedin any manner.

FIG. 8 illustrates techniques for using voice interaction at primarydevice 802 to cause companion device 804 to place a call, according tovarious examples. Primary device 802 is similar or identical to device122 of FIG. 1. Companion device 804 is similar or identical to device102 of FIG. 1. For example, primary device 802 is a smart speaker device(e.g., without a display) and companion device 804 is a smart phonedevice. Some aspects of the present technique are performed using DAserver 806, which is similar or identical to DA server 106 of FIG. 1. Itshould be recognized that, in other examples, any of the operationsperformed by DA server 806 can instead be performed locally at primarydevice 802 and/or companion device 804. For example, the respective DAclient modules (e.g., DA client module 229) of primary device 802 and/orcompanion device 804 can perform the operations of DA server 806.

As represented by arrow 808, a wireless communication connection isinitially established between primary device 802 and companion device804. For example, when companion device 804 is positioned proximate toprimary device 802, primary device 802 detects a wireless signalbroadcasted by companion device 804, which initiates the exchange ofauthentication information between primary device 802 and companiondevice 804. Based on the exchanged authentication information, primarydevice 802 determines whether the companion device is a registereddevice of the primary device. If primary device 802 determines thatcompanion device 804 is a registered device, a wireless communicationconnection is established between primary device 802 and companiondevice 804. In some examples, the established wireless communicationconnection is a single-hop, point-to-point wireless communicationchannel between primary device 802 and companion device 804. Thewireless communication connection is established, for example, using acommunication module (e.g., communication module 228) and RF circuitry(e.g., RF circuitry 208) of primary device 802.

In some examples, in accordance with establishing the wirelesscommunication connection, companion device 804 provides primary device802 with information, such as its device characteristics (e.g., devicecapabilities and functions) and operating state. For example, companiondevice 804 provides information indicating that it is a smartphonehaving telephony functions and that it is currently not engaged in acall. It should be recognized that, in some examples, primary device 802can be communicatively coupled to several devices, each having differentdevice characteristics. For example, wireless communication connectionscan be established between primary device 802 and other devices such assmart light switches, media players, smart thermostats, or the like. Insome examples, primary device 802 is configured to control thefunctionalities of any one of the connected devices based on a receiveduser utterance.

As represented by arrow 810, primary device 802 receives a userutterance (e.g., “Hey Siri, call my mom.”). The user utterances isreceived, for example, at an I/O processing module (e.g., I/O processingmodule 728) via a microphone (e.g., microphone 213) of primary device802. In the present example, the user utterance is received inconjunction with invoking a digital assistant on primary device 802. Thedigital assistant is invoked, for example, upon determining that a firstportion of the user utterance contains a predefined spoken trigger(e.g., “Hey Siri, . . . ”). Invoking the digital assistant causesprimary device 802 to obtain audio data (e.g., via a microphone ofprimary device 802) containing a second portion of the user utterance(e.g., “ . . . call my mom”) and to automatically perform speechrecognition (e.g., using STT processing module 730) and natural languageprocessing (e.g., using natural language processing module 732) on thesecond portion of the user utterance. In other examples, the userutterance is received upon or after invoking the digital assistant onprimary device 802. For example, the digital assistant is invoked inresponse to detecting a user input corresponding to a predetermined type(e.g., a button push). In this example, invoking the digital assistantcauses primary device 802 to obtain audio data containing the userutterance and to automatically perform speech recognition and naturallanguage processing on the user utterance.

Upon receiving the user utterance, primary device 802 sends arepresentation of the user utterance and contextual information to DAserver 806 (as represented by arrow 812). The contextual informationindicates, for example, that a wireless communication connection isestablished between primary device 802 and companion device 804 and thatcompanion device 804 is a registered device of primary device 802. Insome examples, the contextual information specifies an operating stateof companion device 804. The operating state of the companion device 804includes, for example, whether or not companion device 804 is currentlyengaged in an active call. In some examples, the contextual informationspecifies the type of device corresponding to primary device 802 and/orcompanion device 804. For example, the contextual information specifiesthat primary device 802 is a smart speaker device (e.g., withoutstand-alone telephony functions) and/or that companion device 804 is asmartphone device (e.g., having stand-alone telephony functions).

Upon receiving the representation of the user utterance and thecontextual information, DA server 806 determines a user intentcorresponding to the user utterance. In particular, DA server 806performs automatic speech recognition processing (e.g., using STTprocessing module 730) on the user utterance to determine a textrepresentation of the user utterance. DA server 806 then processes thetext representation with the contextual information (e.g., using naturallanguage processing module 732) to determine the user intent. Forexample, given the text representation of the second portion of the userutterance “call my mom,” DA server 806 determines that the “telephony”super domain is most relevant to the user utterance. Within the“telephony” super domain, DA server 806 further determines that the“place a call” actionable intent node is most relevant to the userutterance. Based on this determination, DA server 806 determines thatthe user intent corresponding to the user utterance is to place a call.In some examples, DA server 806 resolves one or more parameters in theselected actionable intent node. For example, DA server 806 determines avalue for the {phone number} parameter in the “place a call” actionableintent node by searching the user's contact information and obtainingthe phone number corresponding to the contact alias “mom” specified inthe user utterance.

In some examples, the contextual information is used by DA server 806 todisambiguate between several likely user intents. For example, based onthe contextual information indicating that primary device 802 is a smartspeaker having no display, DA server 806 can select the “place a call”actionable intent node in the “telephony” super domain as being mostrelevant to the user utterance over the “place a video call” actionableintent node in the “videotelephony” super domain. Thus, even if the userutterance is “place a video call to my mom,” DA server 806 can determinethat the “place a call” actionable intent node in the “telephony” superdomain is most relevant to the user utterance because it recognizesbased on the contextual information that primary device 802 is a smartspeaker that cannot support a video call.

In accordance with the user intent corresponding to the actionableintent of placing a call, DA server 806 generates and sends a command toprimary device 802 (represented by arrow 814). The command represents atask to satisfy the actionable intent of placing a call. In someexamples, the command specifies the domain and parameter(s)corresponding to the determined user intent. For example, the commandspecifies the “place a call” actionable intent node of the “telephony”super domain and the resolved value for the {phone number} parameter. Insome examples, the command does not specify which device is to executethe command, which enables DA server 806 to apply generally across avariety of devices.

Primary device 802 receives and analyzes the command from DA server 806(e.g., using DA client module 229) and determines, based on a set ofrules, which device is to execute the command. For example, primarydevice 802 is communicatively coupled to several devices (includingcompanion device 804). Based on the command, primary device 802determines whether the command is to be executed by itself or by one ofthe coupled devices. For example, based on the “place a call” actionableintent node and the “telephony” super domain specified in the command,primary device 802 determines that the command is to be executed by adevice having telephony functions.

In accordance with determining that companion device 804 is a smartphonehaving telephony functions, primary device 802 sends instructions tocompanion device 804 (as represented by arrow 816) via the establishedwireless communication connection (e.g., using DA client module 229).The instructions cause companion device 804 to perform tasks thatsatisfy the user intent. In some examples, the instructions include thesame command received by primary device 802 from DA service 806. Inthese examples, the command is forwarded to companion device 804 forexecution. For example, upon receiving the command specifying the “placea call” actionable intent node of the “telephony” super domain and theresolved value for the {phone number} parameter, companion device 804executes the task of placing a call to the phone number specified in the{phone number} parameter (e.g., using task flow processing module 736and service processing module 738). In particular, companion device 804initiates a telephone call to the specified phone number using atelephone application (e.g., implemented by telephone module 238) andattempts to establish a telephone connection with an external devicecorresponding to the specified phone number (represented by arrow 822).

In some examples, upon executing the command or attempting to executethe command, companion device 804 generates and sends a confirmationsignal (represented by arrow 818) to primary device 802. Theconfirmation signal indicates, for example, the outcome of companiondevice 804 attempting to execute the command. For example, theconfirmation signal can provide confirmation that the telephone call wassuccessfully initiated. Alternatively, if execution of the command wasunsuccessful, the confirmation signal can indicate the type of errorthat occurred. For example, the confirmation signal can include an errorcode indicating that there is unsatisfactory reception of cellularcommunication signals to initiate a cellular call or that companiondevice 804 is already engaged in a phone call.

In examples where the command to place a call is successfully executed,companion device 804 provides audio data (as represented by arrow 820)for the placed call to primary device 802 (e.g., using telephone module238 and RF circuitry 208). The audio data is sent to primary device 802via the previously established wireless communication channel andincludes audio signals associated with placing the call (e.g., dialtones, dual-tone multi-frequency signaling for dialing the phone number,ringing tones, etc.). Primary device 802 receives the audio data andproduces audio output (e.g., at a speaker of primary device 802) inaccordance with the received audio data. Further, upon establishing atelephone connection, audio data of the established call is exchangedbetween companion device 804 and primary device 802 via the previouslyestablished wireless communication channel. For example, audio datarepresenting speech received at a microphone of primary device 802 issent to companion device 804, which transmits the audio data to thecalled party (e.g., via a cellular network). Similarly, audio datarepresenting speech data received at companion device 804 from thecalled party are sent to primary device 802, which produces audio outputcorresponding to the audio data.

In examples where the confirmation signal includes an error code,primary device 802 processes the error code in conjunction with DAserver 806 and provides a response to the user. For example, primarydevice 802 outputs dialogue informing the user of the type of errorencountered. In some examples, the dialogue prompts the user whether totry placing the call again.

It should be appreciated that the techniques of FIG. 8 can includeplacing other types of phone calls or video calls. Particularly, in someexamples, voice interaction at primary device 802 can be used to causecompanion device 804 to place an emergency call. For example, the userutterance received at primary device 802 is “Hey Siri, call the police,”or “Hey Siri, dial 911.” A representation of the user utterance andassociated contextual information is sent to DA server 806. Based on theuser utterance and the contextual information, DA server 806 determinesa user intent corresponding to the user utterance. For example, DAserver 806 determines from the second portion of the user utterance(e.g., “call the police” or “dial 911”) that the “place emergency call”actionable intent node in the “telephony” super domain is most relevant.Based on this determination, DA server 806 determines that the userintent is to place an emergency call. DA server 806 then sends a commandto primary device 802. The command represents one or more taskscorresponding to the “place emergency call” actionable intent node. Insome examples, based on the command, primary device 802 provides aspoken prompt requesting confirmation that the user wishes to place anemergency call. Upon receiving confirmation that the user wishes toplace an emergency call, primary device 802 continues to process thecommand. In particular, primary device 802 determines whether acompanion device (e.g., companion device 804) having stand-alonetelephony functions is currently connected to primary device 802. Upondetermining that companion device 804 having stand-alone telephonyfunctions is connected to primary device 802, primary device 802forwards the command to companion device 804, which causes companiondevice 804 to place an emergency call. Alternatively, if primary device802 determines that a companion device having stand-alone telephonyfunctions is not currently connected to primary device 802, primarydevice 802 attempts to connect with any surrounding compatible devicehaving telephony functions. For example, primary device 802 broadcasts asignal, which when received by a surrounding compatible device havingstand-alone telephony functions, causes the compatible device toestablish a wireless connection with primary device 802. The compatibledevice need not be a registered device of primary device 802. Uponsuccessfully establishing a wireless connection with the compatibledevice, primary device 802 sends instructions to the compatible deviceto cause the device to place an emergency call.

FIG. 9 illustrates techniques for using voice interaction at primarydevice 902 to cause companion device 904 to answer an incoming call,according to various examples. Primary device 902 and companion device904 are similar or identical to primary device 802 and companion device804, respectively. Some aspects of the present technique are performedusing DA server 906, which is similar or identical to DA server 806. Insome examples, any of these aspects can alternatively be performedlocally at primary device 902 and/or companion device 904.

As represented by arrow 908, a wireless communication connection isinitially established between primary device 902 and companion device904. The wireless communication connection is established in a similarmanner as described above in FIG. 8. In some examples, upon establishingthe wireless communication connection, companion device 904 providesprimary device 902 (via the established connection) with information,such as its device characteristics (e.g., device capabilities andfunctions) and operating state.

As represented by arrow 910, an incoming call is detected at companiondevice 904 (e.g., using telephone module 238 and RF circuitry 208). Insome examples, the incoming call is a voice call received at companiondevice 904 via a telephone network (e.g., landline or cellular network).In some examples, the incoming call is a video call. In some examples,the incoming call is detected using a telecommunications applicationsoftware (e.g., Facetime® or Skype®) operating on companion device 904.

In accordance with detecting the incoming call, companion device 904sends a signal (represented by arrow 910) to primary device 902. Thesignal indicates that an incoming call is detected at companion device904. The signal can further include other contextual informationregarding companion device 904. In some examples, upon detecting theincoming call, companion device 904 outputs an indication of theincoming call. The output serves to alert a user to the incoming call.The output includes, for example, audio, visual, and/or haptic output.In some examples, primary device 902 does not output an audio indicationof the incoming call in response to receiving the signal from companiondevice 904. In other examples, in response to receiving the signal,primary device 902 presents an audio, visual, and/or haptic output toalert the user of the incoming call.

In some examples, the signal (represented by arrow 910) received byprimary device 902 from companion device 904 includes informationregarding the calling party. The information includes, for example,caller identification (ID) information. In some examples, theinformation includes the contact alias of the calling party as listed inthe contacts stored on companion device 904. In some examples, theinformation regarding the calling party is automatically provided viathe signal in accordance with an activated setting (e.g., accessibilitysetting) on companion device 904. In response to receiving the signal,primary device 902 outputs (e.g., via a speaker) spoken dialoguecontaining the information regarding the calling party. For example, ifthe calling party corresponds to the contact alias “mom,” primary device902 outputs spoken dialogue announcing “Mom is calling.”

As represented by arrow 912, a user utterance (e.g., “Hey Siri, answer”)is received at primary device 902 (e.g., using I/O processing module 728via microphone 213). In some examples, the user utterance is received inconjunction with invoking a digital assistant on primary device 902. Thedigital assistant is invoked, for example, upon determining that a firstportion of the user utterance contains a predefined spoken trigger(e.g., “Hey Siri, . . . ”). Invoking the digital assistant causesprimary device 902 to obtain audio data containing a second portion ofthe user utterance (e.g., “ . . . answer”) and to automatically performspeech recognition and natural language processing on the second portionof the user utterance. In other examples, the user utterance can bereceived upon or after invoking the digital assistant on primary device902 (e.g., upon pressing a button to invoke the digital assistant).

Upon receiving the user utterance, primary device 902 sends arepresentation of the user utterance and associated contextualinformation (represented by arrow 914) to DA server 906. The contextualinformation includes, for example, information similar to that describedabove in the example of FIG. 8. In some examples, the contextualinformation includes information represented in the received signal. Forexample, the contextual information indicates that an incoming call isdetected at companion device 904.

In accordance with receiving the representation of the user utteranceand the associated contextual information, DA server 906 automaticallydetermines a user intent corresponding to the user utterance (e.g., byperforming automatic speech recognition and natural languageprocessing). For example, based on the contextual information and a textrepresentation of the second portion of the user utterance “answer,” DAserver 906 determines that the “telephony” super domain is most relevantto the user utterance. Within the “telephony” super domain, DA server906 further determines that the “answer call” actionable intent node ismost relevant to the user utterance. Based on this determination, DAserver 906 determines that the user intent corresponding to the userutterance is to answer a call.

In some examples, the contextual information is used by DA server 906 todisambiguate between several likely user intents. For example, based onthe contextual information indicating that an incoming call is currentlydetected at companion device 904, DA server 906 can select the “answercall” actionable intent node in the “telephony” super domain as beingmost relevant to the user utterance as opposed to the “answer email”actionable intent node in the “email” super domain. In another example,based on the contextual information indicating that primary device 902is a smart speaker having no display, DA server 906 can select the“answer call” actionable intent node in the “telephony” super domain asbeing most relevant to the user utterance as opposed to the “answercall” actionable intent node in the “videotelephony” super domain.

In accordance with the user intent corresponding to the actionableintent of answering the incoming call, DA server 906 performs one ormore tasks corresponding to the actionable intent. The one or more tasksinclude, for example, generating and sending a command to primary device902 (represented by arrow 916). The command represents a task to satisfythe actionable intent of answering the incoming call. In some examples,the command specifies the domain of the user intent. For example, thecommand specifies the “answer call” actionable intent node of the“telephony” super domain.

In some examples, DA server 906 generates and sends the command afterverifying that the contextual information indicates that companiondevice 904 detected an incoming call. If the contextual information doesnot indicate that companion device 904 (or any other associated device)detected an incoming call, DA server 906 returns an error indication toprimary device 902. The error indication, for example, causes DA server906 to output dialogue informing the user that there is no incoming callto answer at the moment. In some examples, the error indication causesDA server 906 to output a prompt asking whether or not the user wishesto place a call.

Primary device 902 analyzes the command from DA server 906 anddetermines, based on a set of rules, which device of multiple possibleconnected devices is to execute the command. For example, by applyingthe set of rules, primary device 902 determines that the command is tobe executed by companion device 904 because the “answer call” actionableintent node is part of the “telephony” super domain and companion device904 has telephony capabilities. Additionally, in some examples, primarydevice 902 determines which device is to execute the command based onthe operating states of the multiple possible devices. For example,based on the signal indicating that companion device 904 detects anincoming call, primary device 902 determines that the operating state ofcompanion device 904 is most relevant to the “answer call” actionableintent node and thus determines that companion device 904 is to executethe command.

In accordance with a determination that companion device 904 is toexecute the command, primary device 902 sends instructions (asrepresented by arrow 916) to companion device 904 via the establishedwireless communication connection. The instructions cause companiondevice 904 to perform tasks corresponding to the user intent ofanswering a call. In some examples, the instructions include the samecommand received by primary device 902 from DA service 906. In theseexamples, primary device 902 forwards the command to companion device904 for execution.

Upon receiving a command specifying the “answer call” actionable intentnode of the “telephony” super domain, companion device 904 executes thecorresponding tasks of answering the incoming call and establishing atelephone connection with the external device of the calling party. Insome examples, the corresponding tasks include providing audio data ofthe answered incoming call to the electronic device. For example, audiodata for the answered call is exchanged between primary device 902 andcompanion device 904 (represented by arrow 918). In some examples, thecorresponding tasks include providing audio data of the answeredincoming call to the electronic device.

Upon executing the command or attempting to execute the command,companion device 904 generates and sends a confirmation signal(represented by arrow 922) to primary device 902. In some examples, uponreceiving the confirmation signal, primary device 902 sends arepresentation of the confirmation signal (represented by arrow 920) toDA server 906. The confirmation signal indicates the outcome ofcompanion device 904 attempting to execute the command. For example, theconfirmation signal provides confirmation that the incoming call issuccessfully answered and that a telephone connection is establishedbetween companion device 904 and the device of the calling party. Insome examples, upon receiving a confirmation signal indicating that theincoming call is successfully answered, primary device 902 outputs anindication (e.g., audio, visual, and/or haptic) informing the user thatthe incoming call is successfully answered.

In examples where the command to answer the incoming call issuccessfully executed, companion device 904 provides audio data(represented by arrow 918) of the answered incoming call to primarydevice 902. The audio data is sent to primary device 902 via thepreviously established wireless communication channel and includesrepresentations of audio signals transmitted from the calling party.Primary device 902 receives the audio data (e.g., using RF circuitry208) and produces audio output (e.g., using audio circuitry 210 andspeaker 211) in accordance with the received audio data. Further, audiodata representing speech received at a microphone of primary device 902is sent to companion device 904, which transmits the audio data to thecalling party (e.g., via the cellular network). In some examples,companion device 904 does not produce audio output corresponding to theaudio data and instead relies on primary device 902 to produce audiooutput.

In some examples, execution of the command is unsuccessful. In theseexamples, the confirmation signal indicates the type of error associatedwith the unsuccessful execution of the command. For example, theconfirmation signal includes a first error code indicating that theincoming call terminated prior to companion device 904 executing thecommand and that the incoming call includes caller identificationinformation. In another example, the confirmation signal includes asecond error code indicating that the incoming call terminated prior tocompanion device 904 executing the command and that the incoming calldoes not include caller identification information. Upon receiving aconfirmation signal with an error code, primary device 902 processes theerror code in conjunction with DA server 906 and provides acorresponding response to the user (e.g., using task flow processingmodule 736, dialogue flow processing module 734, and speech synthesisprocessing module 740). For example, primary device 902 sends the errorcode to DA server 906 (e.g., represented by arrow 920). Based on theerror code, DA server 906 provides a corresponding dialogue response toprimary device 902 (represented by arrow 924). For example, inaccordance with a first error code indicating that the incoming callterminated prior to companion device 904 executing the command and thatthe incoming call includes caller identification information, DA server906 sends primary device 902 a dialogue response that informs the userof the error and prompts the user to return the call based on the calleridentification information (e.g., “Sorry, you missed a call from yourmom. Would you like to call her back?”).

In another example, in accordance with a second error code indicatingthat the incoming call terminated prior to companion device 904executing the command and that the incoming call does not include calleridentification information, DA server 906 sends primary device 902 adialogue response that informs the user of the error without promptingthe user to return the call (e.g., “Sorry, you missed the call.”).

Upon receiving the dialogue response from DA server 906, primary device902 outputs (e.g., via a speaker of primary device 902) the dialogueresponse in spoken form. In examples where the dialogue response promptsthe user to return the call based on the caller identificationinformation, primary device 902 automatically detects a spoken responsefrom the user and causes DA server 906 to determine a corresponding userintent for the spoken response. In accordance with DA server 906determining that the user intent for the spoken response corresponds tothe actionable intent of placing a call using the caller identificationinformation, DA server 906 sends primary device 902 a command to causecompanion device 904 to initiate a call using the caller identificationinformation.

FIG. 10 illustrates techniques for using voice interaction at primarydevice 1002 to cause companion device 1004 to perform call-related taskswhile companion device 1004 is engaged in an active call, according tovarious examples. Primary device 1002 and companion device 1004 aresimilar or identical to primary device 802 and companion device 804,respectively. Some aspects of the present technique are performed usingDA server 1006, which is similar or identical to DA server 806. In someexamples, any of these aspects can alternatively be performed locally atprimary device 1002 and/or companion device 1004.

In the present example of FIG. 10, companion device 1004 is engaged inan active call. For example, an active telephone call or video callconnection is established between companion device 1004 and an externaldevice (e.g., via a telephone, cellular, or Internet network). In someexamples, the active call is established upon primary device 1002successfully causing companion device 1004 to place a call (e.g., asdescribed in FIG. 8). Alternatively, the active call is established, forexample, upon primary device 1002 successfully causing companion device1004 to answer an incoming call (e.g., as described in FIG. 9).

As represented by arrow 1008, audio data associated with the active callis exchanged between companion device 1004 and primary device 1002. Theaudio data is exchanged, for example, via a previously establishedwireless communication connection between primary device 1002 andcompanion device 1004. The wireless communication connection isestablished in a similar manner as described above in FIG. 8. In someexamples, primary device 1002 sends companion device 1004 audio datarepresenting audio signals received at a microphone of primary device1002 during the active call. Companion device 1004 then transmits theaudio data from primary device 1002 to the external device via theactive call connection. Similarly, companion device 1004 receives audiodata from the external device audio data via the active call connectionand provides the audio data to primary device 1002. Primary device 1002outputs audio (e.g., at a speaker of primary device 1002) correspondingto the received audio data. The received audio data represents audiosignals received by a microphone of the external device during theactive call.

As represented by arrow 1010, primary device 1002 receives a userutterance (e.g., via a microphone of primary device 1002) during theactive call. For example, the user utterance is received while primarydevice 1002 outputs audio in accordance with the received audio dataassociated with the active call. The user utterance can be naturallanguage speech representing one of a plurality of call-related tasksthat the user wishes primary device 1002 to perform in conjunction withcompanion device 1004. For example, the user utterance includes one ofthe following utterances:

-   -   “Hey Siri, hang up.”    -   “Hey Siri, enter 3.”    -   “Hey Siri, place on hold.”    -   “Hey Siri, transfer to my sister.”    -   “Hey Siri, join in the call.”    -   “Hey Siri, answer the call.”

In some examples, primary device 1002 receives a signal containingcontextual information prior to or in conjunction with receiving theuser utterance. As represented by arrow 1020, the signal is receivedfrom companion device 1004. In some examples, the signal is receivedfrom a different companion device that is communicatively coupled toprimary device 1002. The contextual information includes, for example,an operating state of companion device 1004 that is relevant to thereceived user utterance. For example, the signal indicates thatcompanion device 1004 is currently engaged in an active call. In someexamples, the signal further indicates that companion device 1004detects an incoming call separate from the current active call. In someexamples, the signal indicates that while companion device 1004 iscurrently engaged in an active call, a companion device other thancompanion device 1004 detects an incoming call. In some examples, basedon the received signal, primary device 1002 outputs spoken dialogueannouncing the separate incoming call. For example, the spoken dialoguecan state: “You have another incoming call from John on the same line”or “Incoming call on Bob's phone.” In some examples, although the spokendialogue is outputted from a speaker of primary device 1002, the audiodata corresponding to the spoken dialogue is not sent to companiondevice 1004. For example, primary device 1002 performs signalcancellation on the audio input received at a microphone of the primarydevice 1002 to cancel out the portion of the audio input correspondingto the outputted spoken dialogue. In this way, the far-end party of theactive call would not hear the spoken dialogue announcing the separateincoming call.

In some examples, the user utterance is received in conjunction withinvoking a digital assistant on primary device 1002. For example, thedigital assistant is invoked in a similar manner as described above inFIGS. 8 and 9. Depending on the manner in which the digital assistant isinvoked, audio data corresponding to the user utterance may or may notbe sent by primary device 1002 to companion device 1004. In someexamples, if the digital assistant is invoked in response to detecting auser input corresponding to a first predetermined type (e.g., detectingthat a first portion of the user utterance contains a predefined spokentrigger, such as “Hey Siri,”), then primary device 1002 includes arepresentation of the user utterance in the audio data sent to companiondevice 1004. As a result, the far-end party of the active call will hearthe user utterance. Alternatively, if the digital assistant is invokedin response to detecting a user input corresponding to a secondpredetermined type (e.g., a button push), then primary device 1002 doesnot include a representation of the user utterance in the audio datasent to companion device 1004. For example, primary device 1002 cancelsa portion of the audio data corresponding to the user utterance. As aresult, the far-end party of the active call will not hear the userutterance. This can be desirable when the user utterance represents arequest that the user wishes to keep private. For example, if the useris currently on an active call with the user's mother, the user may wantto find out the birthday of the user's mother without the user's motherknowing. In this situation, the user may privately invoke the digitalassistant (e.g., second predetermined type) to provide the userutterance “When's my mother's birthday?” Additionally, for such privatedigital assistant requests, any spoken dialogue response provided by thedigital assistant would also be removed from the audio data sent tocompanion device 1004. Thus, the far-end party will not hear the spokendialogue response provided by the digital assistant.

In some examples, the digital assistant implemented on primary device1002 can be invoked by an utterance represented in audio data receivedfrom the far-end party of the active call. For example, the utterancefrom the far-end party can be “Hey Siri, find us a good Japaneserestaurant.” In these examples, primary device 1002 analyzes audio dataof the active call received from companion device 1004 and determines(e.g., using speaker recognition techniques) whether an utterancerepresented in the audio data corresponds to a predefined spokentrigger. If primary device 1002 determines that a first portion of theutterance contains a predefined spoken trigger (e.g., “Hey Siri, . . .”), then primary device 1002 invokes the digital assistant andautomatically causes a second portion of the utterance (e.g., “ . . .find us a good Japanese restaurant”) to undergo speech recognition andnatural language processing (e.g., at DA server 1006). The utterancefrom the far-end party is processed in a similar manner as a userutterance received at a microphone of primary device 1002. Additionally,the spoken dialogue response provided by the digital assistant inresponse to the user utterance from the far-end party is sent to thefar-end party via companion device 1004. Thus, the far-end party willhear the spoken dialogue response.

Upon receiving the user utterance (represented by arrow 1010), primarydevice 1002 sends a representation of the user utterance and associatedcontextual information to DA server 1006 (represented by arrow 1012).The contextual information includes, for example, information similar tothat described in the above examples of FIGS. 8 and 9. The contextualinformation is based on one or more signals received from companiondevice 1004 and/or a different companion device. In some examples, thecontextual information indicates that companion device 1004 is engagedin an active call. In some examples, where relevant, the contextualinformation further indicates that a separate incoming call is detectedat companion device 1004 or at another companion device that iscommunicatively coupled to primary device 1002.

In accordance with receiving the representation of the user utteranceand the associated contextual information, DA server 1006 automaticallydetermines a user intent corresponding to the user utterance (e.g., byperforming automatic speech recognition and natural languageprocessing). As described in the examples of FIGS. 7A-7C, determining auser intent includes determining a domain (or super domain) that is mostrelevant to the user utterance.

In some examples, DA server 1006 permits processing of user intentsunrelated to the currently active call. In other examples, DA server1006 restricts processing of user intents unrelated to the currentactive call. Such restriction can be desirable to reduce disruptions tothe active call caused by unintentional invocations of the digitalassistant. For example, in accordance with the contextual informationindicating that companion device 1004 is engaged in an active telephonecall, DA server 1006 determines whether the domain determined to be mostrelevant to the user utterance corresponds to the “telephony” or“videotelephony” super domain (for controlling call functionality). IfDA server 1006 determines that the domain most relevant to the userutterance is the “telephony” or “videotelephony” super domain, then DAserver 1006 proceeds to complete natural language processing on the userutterance and performs one or more tasks to satisfy the user intentcorresponding to the user utterance. Alternatively, if DA server 1006determines that the domain most relevant to the user utterance is adomain other than the “telephony” super domain, then DA server 1006forgoes performing one or more tasks to satisfy the user intent.

The determination of user intent for each of the above exemplary userutterances is now described in greater detail. For the user utterance“Hey Siri, hang up,” DA server 1006 determines, based on the portion “ .. . hang up” and the contextual information, that the “terminate call”actionable intent node in the “telephony” super domain is most relevantto the user utterance. For the user utterance “Hey Siri, enter 3,” DAserver 1006 determines, based on the portion “ . . . enter 3” and thecontextual information, that the “transmit DTMF tone” actionable intentnode in the “telephony” super domain is most relevant to the userutterance. For the user utterance “Hey Siri, place on hold,” DA server1006 determines, based on the portion “ . . . place on hold” and thecontextual information, that the “hold call” actionable intent node inthe “telephony” super domain is most relevant to the user utterance. Forthe user utterance “Hey Siri, transfer to my sister,” DA server 1006determines, based on the portion “ . . . transfer to my sister” and thecontextual information, that the “transfer call” actionable intent nodein the “telephony” super domain is most relevant to the user utterance.For the user utterance “Hey Siri, join in the call,” DA server 1006determines, based on the portion “ . . . join in the call” and thecontextual information, that the “join call” actionable intent node inthe “telephony” super domain is most relevant to the user utterance. Forthe user utterance “Hey Siri, answer the call,” DA server 1006determine, based on the portion “ . . . answer the call,” that the“answer call” actionable intent node in the “telephony” super domain ismost relevant to the user utterance.

In some examples, the contextual information is used by DA server 1006to disambiguate between multiple actionable intent nodes that may bedetermined to be highly relevant to the user utterance. For example, theutterance “hang up” or “place on hold” in isolation can be ambiguouswith respect to whether the user wishes to hang up a telephone call(e.g., for cellular voice service) or a video call (e.g., for atelecommunications application software). If the contextual informationindicates that companion device 1004 is currently engaged in an activetelephone call but not a video call, then DA server 1006 would selectthe “telephony” super domain over the “videotelephony” domain as beingmost relevant to the user utterance.

In some examples, DA server 1006 resolves one or more parameters in theselected actionable intent node. The one or more parameters are resolvedusing information obtained from the user utterance and the contextualinformation. For example, based on the portion “3” in the user utterance“Hey Siri, enter 3,” DA server 1006 determines that the value for the{character key} parameter in the “transmit DTMF tone” actionable intentnode is “3.”

Based on the determined user intent, DA server 1006 performs one or moretasks (e.g., in accordance with a corresponding task flow) to satisfythe user intent. The one or more tasks include, for example, generatingand sending a command to primary device 1002 (represented by arrow1014). The command represents one or more tasks to satisfy the userintent. In some examples, the command specifies the domain or actionableintent node corresponding to the user intent. Upon receiving the commandfrom DA server 1006, primary device 1002 analyzes the command anddetermines, based on a set of rules, which device of multiple possibledevices is to execute the command. The determination is based on thedomain or actionable intent node specified in the command. Additionally,in some examples, the determination is based on the capabilities of eachof the possible device. In some examples, primary device 1002 determinesthat the command is to be executed by itself and thus proceeds toexecute the command. In other examples, primary device 1002 determinesthat a companion device (e.g., companion device 1004) is to execute thecommand. In these examples, primary device 1002 sends instructions tothe companion device (as represented by arrow 1016). The instructions,when received by the companion device, cause the companion device toautomatically perform one or more tasks to satisfy the user intent(e.g., without further input from the user). In some examples, theinstructions include the same command received from DA server 1006.

The commands and resultant executed tasks for each of the aboveexemplary user utterances are now described in greater detail. For theuser utterance “Hey Siri, hang up,” the command received at primarydevice 1002 from DA server 1006 specifies the “terminate call”actionable intent node of the “telephony” super domain. Based on a setof rules and the “terminate call” actionable intent node, primary device1002 determines that the command is to be executed by primary device1002. In accordance with this determination, primary device 1002executes the command by performing one or more tasks corresponding tothe “terminate call” actionable intent node. For example, primary device1002 ceases to obtain audio data (e.g., via its microphone) and outputaudio (e.g., via its speaker) associated with the active call. In someexamples, primary device 1002 terminates communication with companiondevice 1004 related with the active call, which causes companion device1004 to terminate the active call with the far-end party. In someexamples, executing the command includes sending to companion device1004 (e.g., via the previously established wireless communicationconnection) a signal that causes companion device 1004 to terminate theactive call. The signal is different from the command received from theDA server 1006. For example, the signal can be a lower level signal thatdoes not specify the “terminate call” actionable intent node of the“telephony” super domain. Executing the command at primary device 1002rather than companion device 1004 can be desirable because it produces aquicker response from the perspective of the user. In addition, primarydevice 1002 is more quickly freed up to engage in a subsequent call withcompanion device 1004 or a different companion device.

In the example user utterance “Hey Siri, enter 3,” the command receivedat primary device 1002 from DA server 1006 specifies the “transmit DTMFtone” actionable intent node of the “telephony” super domain, forexample. The command also specifies the value “3” for the associated{character key} parameter. Primary device 1002 then determines, based ona set of rules, the “transmit DTMF tone” actionable intent node, and thetelephony capabilities of companion device 1004, that the command is tobe executed by companion device 1004. In accordance with thisdetermination, primary device 1002 forwards the command received from DAserver 1006 to companion device 1004. In response to receiving thecommand, companion device 1004 performs one or more tasks correspondingto the “transmit DTMF tone” actionable intent node. Specifically,companion device 1004 generates the DTMF tone for the character key “3”and transmits the tone on the active call to the far-end party.

In the example user utterance “Hey Siri, place on hold,” the commandreceived at primary device 1002 from DA server 1006 specifies the “holdcall” actionable intent node of the “telephony” super domain, forexample. Based on a set of rules, the “hold call” actionable intentnode, and contextual information indicating that companion device 1004is currently engaged in an active call, primary device 1002 determinesthat the command is to be executed by companion device 1004. Inaccordance with this determination, primary device 1002 forwards thecommand received from DA server 1006 to companion device 1004. Inresponse to receiving the command, companion device 1004 performs one ormore tasks corresponding to the “hold call” actionable intent node.Specifically, companion device 1004 places the active call on hold.

In the example user utterance “Hey Siri, transfer to my sister,” thecommand received at primary device 1002 from DA server 1006 specifiesthe “transfer call” actionable intent node of the “telephony” superdomain. The command also specifies a parameter value for the associated{call transfer number} parameter of the “transfer call” actionableintent node. The parameter value, for example, specifies a phone numberto which the active call is to be transferred (e.g., the phone numbercorresponding to “sister”). Based on a set of rules, the “transfer call”actionable intent node, and contextual information indicating thatcompanion device 1004 is currently engaged in an active call, primarydevice 1002 determines that the command is to be executed by companiondevice 1004. In accordance with this determination, primary device 1002forwards the command received from DA server 1006 to companion device1004. In response to receiving the command, companion device 1004performs one or more tasks corresponding to the “transfer call”actionable intent node. Specifically, companion device 1004 places acall to a party (e.g., “sister”) corresponding to the phone numberspecified in the {call transfer number} parameter and transfers thecurrent active call to that party.

In the example user utterance “Hey Siri, join in the call,” the commandreceived at primary device 1002 from DA server 1006 specifies the “joincall” actionable intent node of the “telephony” super domain. Based on aset of rules, the “join call” actionable intent node, and contextualinformation indicating that companion device 1004 detects a secondincoming call while engaged in an active call, primary device 1002determines that the command is to be executed by companion device 1004.In accordance with this determination, primary device 1002 forwards thecommand received from DA server 1006 to companion device 1004. Inresponse to receiving the command, companion device 1004 performs one ormore tasks corresponding to the “join call” actionable intent node. Forexample, companion device 1004 places the active call on hold, answersthe second incoming call, and then merges the two calls to establish athree-way call.

It should be recognized that, in some examples, a three-way call canalternatively be established by calling another party and then mergingthat other party into the active call. For example, the user utterancereceived at primary device 1002 can be “Hey Siri, join Susan into thecall.” DA server 1006 determines that the “join call” actionable intentnode is most relevant to this user utterance. In addition to specifyingthe “join call” actionable intent node, the command received at primarydevice 1002 from DA server 1006 specifies the phone number associatedwith the contact alias “Susan.” Upon receiving the command from primarydevice 1002, companion device 1004 places the current active call onhold, establishes a second call by dialing Susan's phone number (e.g.,specified in the {call join number} parameter of the “join call”actionable intent node) and then merges the two calls to establish athree-way call.

In the example user utterance “Hey Siri, answer the call,” the commandreceived at primary device 1002 from DA server 1006 specifies the“answer call” actionable intent node of the “telephony” super domain.Based on the contextual information, primary device 1002 determineswhich companion device 1004 is to execute the command. For example, ifthe contextual information indicates that a second incoming call isdetected at companion device 1004 while companion device 1004 is engagedin an active call, then primary device 1002 determines that companiondevice 1004 is to execute the command and forwards the command tocompanion device 1004. Companion device 1004 then answers the secondincoming call to establish a second active call. In addition, companiondevice 1004 either terminates the original active call or places it onhold. Audio data associated with the second active call is then sent toprimary device 1002 for output.

In other examples, the contextual information indicates that a secondincoming call is detected at a second companion device while companiondevice 1004 is engaged in an active call. In these examples, primarydevice 1002 determines that the second companion device is to executethe command specifying the “answer call” actionable intent node andforwards the command to the second companion device. In response toreceiving the command, the second companion device answers the secondincoming call to establish a telephone connection with the callingparty. In addition, primary device 1002 disconnects from the originalactive call on companion device 1004. In particular, primary device 1002transfers operation of the original active call back to companion device1004 and ceases to obtain audio input (e.g., via its microphone) orreceive audio data (e.g., from companion device 1004) associated withthe original active call.

Upon executing the command, companion device 1004 (or another companiondevice) sends a confirmation signal (represented by arrow 1018) toprimary device 1002. The confirmation signal is similar to thatdescribed above in FIGS. 8 and 9. For example, the confirmation signalindicates whether or not the command was successfully executed. Asdescribed in FIGS. 8 and 9, primary device 1002 can provide anindicator, based on the confirmation signal, as to whether or not thecommand was successfully executed.

FIG. 11 illustrates techniques for using voice interaction at primarydevice 1102 to cause companion device 1104 to provide call-relatedinformation, according to various examples. Primary device 1102 andcompanion device 1104 are similar or identical to primary device 802 andcompanion device 804, respectively. Some aspects of the presenttechnique are performed using DA server 1106, which is similar oridentical to DA server 806. In some examples, any of these aspects canalternatively be performed locally at primary device 1102 and/orcompanion device 1104.

As represented by arrow 1108, a wireless communication connection isinitially established between primary device 1102 and companion device1104. The wireless communication connection is established in a similarmanner as described above in FIG. 8. Primary device 1102 receives a userutterance (as represented by arrow 1110). In the present example, theuser utterance can represent a request for information stored oncompanion device 1104. In some examples, the requested information iscall-related information. For example, the utterance is “Hey Siri, playmy voice mails” or “Hey Siri, tell me what calls I missed.” In someexamples, the user utterance is received in conjunction with or uponinvoking a digital assistant on primary device 1102. Invoking thedigital assistant causes primary device 1102 to obtain audio data (e.g.,via a microphone) containing at least a portion of the user utteranceand to automatically perform speech recognition and natural languageprocessing on the portion of the user utterance.

Upon receiving the user utterance, primary device 1102 sends arepresentation of the user utterance and associated contextualinformation to DA server 1106 (represented by arrow 1112). Thecontextual information includes, for example, information similar tothat described above in the examples of FIGS. 8-10. In some examples,the contextual information includes information indicated in a signalreceived from companion device 1104 (similar to the signal described inFIGS. 8-10).

In accordance with receiving the representation of the user utteranceand the associated contextual information, DA server 1106 automaticallydetermines a user intent corresponding to the user utterance (e.g., byperforming automatic speech recognition and natural languageprocessing). In some examples, the determined user intent relates toobtaining and presenting call-related information. For example, based onthe contextual information and a text representation of the userutterance “ . . . play my voice mails,” DA server 1106 determines thatthe “play voicemail” actionable intent node of the “telephony” superdomain is most relevant to the user utterance. Based on thisdetermination, DA server 1106 determines that the user intentcorresponding to the user utterance is to play recent voicemails. Inanother example, based on the contextual information and a textrepresentation of the user utterance “ . . . tell me what calls Imissed,” DA server 1106 determines that the “list missed calls”actionable intent node of the “telephony” super domain is most relevantto the user utterance. Based on this determination, DA server 1106determines that the user intent corresponding to the user utterance isto present a list of recent missed calls.

Based on the determined user intent, DA server 1106 generates and sendsa command to primary device 1102 (represented by arrow 1114). Thecommand represents a task to satisfy the user intent. In some examples,the command specifies the domain or actionable intent node of the userintent. Additionally, in some examples, the command includes values forone or more parameters associated with the domain or actionable intentnode. Upon receiving the command from DA server 1106, primary device1102 analyzes the command and determines which device of multiplepossible devices is to execute the command. The determination is basedon, for example, a set of rules, the actionable intent node specified inthe command, and contextual information. In the example utterance “ . .. play my voice mails,” the command specifies the “play voicemail”actionable intent node. Based on a set of rules, the “play voicemail”actionable intent node, and contextual information indicating thatcompanion device 1104 has telephone capabilities (including voicemail),primary device 1102 determines that the command is to be executed bycompanion device 1104. Similarly, in the example utterance “ . . . tellme what calls I missed,” DA server 1106 determines, based on a set ofrules, the “list missed calls” actionable intent node, and contextualinformation indicating that companion device 1104 has telephonecapabilities (including recent call logging), primary device 1102determines that the command is to be executed by companion device 1104.

In accordance with determining that the command is to be executed bycompanion device 1104, primary device 1102 sends instructions tocompanion device 1104 (represented by arrow 1116). The instructionscause companion device 1104 to automatically perform one or more tasksto satisfy the user intent (e.g., without further input from the user).In some examples, the instructions include the same command receivedfrom DA server 1106. For example, primary device 1102 forwards thecommand from DA server to companion device 1104 (represented by arrow1116).

In response to receiving the command, companion device 1104 performs oneor more tasks corresponding to the user intent. For example, if the userintent relates to obtaining and presenting call-related information,companion device 1104 retrieves the call-related information and sendsthe call-related information to primary device 1102 for presentation(represented by arrow 1118). Specifically, returning to the exampleutterance “ . . . play my voice mails,” companion device 1104 performsone or more tasks corresponding to the “play voicemail” actionableintent node. The one or more tasks include, for example, identifying theN most recent voicemail audio files (where N is a predefined positiveinteger) stored on companion device 1104 and sending the voicemail audiofiles to primary device 1102 for presentation. Each voicemail audio fileincludes call information (e.g., phone number, time, contact alias,etc.) and an audio recording of the voicemail. Similarly, for theexample utterance “ . . . tell me what calls I missed,” companion device1104 performs one or more tasks corresponding to the “list missed calls”actionable intent node. The one or more tasks include, for example,obtaining call information (e.g., phone number, time, contact alias,etc.) for the N most recent missed call (where N is a predefinedpositive integer) stored on companion device 1104 and sending the callinformation to primary device 1102 for presentation.

Upon receiving the call-related information from companion device 1104,primary device 1102 sends a representation of the information to DAserver 1106 (represented by arrow 1120), which constructs a spokendialogue with the call-related information (e.g., using dialogue flowprocessing module 734). The spoken dialogue is then sent to primarydevice 1102 (represented by arrow 1122) where it is outputted via aspeaker of primary device 1102.

By way of example, continuing with the example utterance “ . . . play myvoice mails,” primary device 1102 sends DA server 1106 callerinformation for the N most recent voicemail audio files. DA server 1106then constructs a spoken dialogue with the caller information such as,for example, “Here are your three most recent voice messages. The firstis from John Adams received at 2:43 pm on May 8th, 2018 . . . .” Primarydevice 1102 plays the spoken dialogue received from DA server 1106 andincorporates playing of the voicemail audio file into the spokendialogue.

Similarly, in the example utterance “ . . . tell me what calls Imissed,” primary device 1102 sends DA server 1106 caller information forthe N most recent missed calls. DA server 1106 then constructs a spokendialogue with the caller information such as, for example, “You havethree missed calls. The first is from Susan White at 12:15 pm on May2nd, 2018 . . . .” Primary device 1102 then plays the spoken dialoguereceived from DA server 1106. In some examples, the spoken dialogueincludes a prompt to return a call to any of the missed calls.

Although not depicted in FIG. 11, it should be recognized that aconfirmation signal similar to that described in FIGS. 8-10 can be sentby companion device 1104 to primary device 1102 to indicate whether thecommand is successfully executed.

4. Process for Accessing Call Functionality using Voice Interaction

FIGS. 12A-12B illustrate process 1200 for using voice interaction toaccess call functionality of a companion device, according to variousexamples. Process 1200 is performed, for example, using one or moreelectronic devices implementing a digital assistant. In some examples,process 1200 is performed using a client-server system (e.g., system100), and the blocks of process 1200 are divided up in any mannerbetween the server (e.g., DA server 106) and one or more client devices(e.g., user devices 104 and 122). Thus, while portions of process 1200are described herein as being performed by particular devices of aclient-server system, it will be appreciated that process 1200 is not solimited. In some examples, process 1200 is performed using only a clientdevice (e.g., user device 122) or multiple client devices (e.g., userdevices 104 and 122). In process 1200, some blocks are, optionally,combined, the order of some blocks is, optionally, changed, and someblocks are, optionally, omitted. In some examples, additional steps maybe performed in combination with the process 1200.

Process 1200 can be implemented to cause a companion device to answer anincoming call based on voice interaction at a primary device. Asdescribed in greater detail below, process 1200 includes, for example,receiving a signal indicating the incoming call at the companion device.Based on a received user utterance and contextual information, process1200 causes a server to determine a user intent corresponding to theuser utterance. The contextual information is based on the receivedsignal from the companion device. In accordance with the user intentcorresponding to an actionable intent of answering the incoming call,process 1200 performs several operations including receiving, from theserver, a command representing a task to satisfy the actionable intentof answering the incoming call. The operations further include, based onthe command, providing instructions to the companion device to answerthe incoming call and relay audio data of the answered incoming call tothe electronic device. In accordance with the instructions successfullycausing the companion device to answer the incoming call, audio outputat the speaker of the electronic device is outputted according to theaudio data of the answered incoming call received from the companiondevice.

Receiving a signal indicating an incoming call at the companion deviceand causing a server to determine a user intent based on contextualinformation derived from the signal enables a primary device toaccurately obtain a command that represents a task corresponding to thereceived user utterance. In addition, the signal enables the primarydevice to recognize that the command should be executed by the companiondevice and thus the primary device can efficiently provide instructionsto the companion device to perform the task of answering the incomingcall. This enables the primary device to function as an intelligentcentralized hub to process spoken user requests and coordinate thedistribution of resultant commands. As a result, voice interaction atthe primary device can be used to access the call functionality of thecompanion device, which improves user accessibility to the companiondevice and provides a better user experience. For example, a user neednot be proximate to the companion device to answer an incoming call onthe companion device. Instead, the user can provide a spoken request tothe primary device and cause the companion device to answer the incomingcall and transfer audio data from the answered call to the primarydevice.

Moreover, using voice interaction at the primary device to access thecall functionality of the companion device enables the features of eachdevice to be leveraged in a manner that produces an improved userexperience. For example, the primary device is a smart speaker that doesnot have stand-alone call functionality, but has microphones andspeakers that deliver high-quality audio suitable for far-field voiceinteraction. In contrast, the companion device is a smart phone that hasstand-alone call functionality. However, the microphone and speakers ofthe companion device do not deliver audio of suitable quality forfar-field voice interaction. By using voice interaction at the primarydevice to access the call functionality of the companion device, themicrophones and speakers of the primary device can be combined with thecall functionality of the companion device to accurately and efficientlyprocess far-field spoken requests to answer an incoming call on thecompanion device. In addition, the quality of audio exchanged during theanswer call can be improved as a result of conducting the call via theprimary device.

Turning now to the operations depicted in FIGS. 12A-12B, at block 1202,authentication information is exchanged (e.g., using communicationmodule 228) with a companion device. The exchanged authenticationinformation serves to verify whether the companion device is aregistered device of the primary device. The primary device is, forexample, similar or identical to device 122, described above and thecompanion device is, for example, similar to device 104, describedabove. In some examples, the companion device has stand-alone callfunctionality whereas the primary device does not have stand-alone callfunctionality. In these examples, the primary device is not capable ofinitiating an outgoing call or receiving an incoming call from anexternal device without relying on the call functionality of thecompanion device. In some examples, block 1202 is performed prior toblocks 1206 and 1208.

At block 1204, in accordance with a determination, based on theauthentication information, that the companion device is a registereddevice of the primary device, a wireless communication connection isestablished with the companion device (e.g., as represented by arrow 908in FIG. 9). The wireless communication connection is established using,for example, a communication module (e.g., communication module 228) andRF circuitry (e.g., RF circuitry 208) of the primary device.Alternatively, in accordance with a determination, based on theauthentication information, that the companion device is not aregistered device of the primary device, a wireless communicationconnection is not established with the companion device. It should berecognized that, in some examples, establishing a wireless communicationconnection is required to receive the signal of block 1206 and toprovide the instructions of block 1218.

At block 1206, a signal is received from the companion device (e.g., asrepresented by arrow 910 in FIG. 9). The received signal indicates, forexample, an incoming call at the companion device. In some examples, thesignal is received via the established wireless communication connectionof block 1204. In some examples, the signal is received, for example, byan I/O processing module (e.g., I/O processing module 728) of a digitalassistant module (e.g., digital assistant module 726) implemented on theprimary device.

In some examples, while receiving the signal, the companion deviceoutputs an indication of the incoming call (e.g., audio, visual, orhaptic indication) whereas the primary device does not output an audioindication of the incoming call. In particular, outputting an indicationof the incoming call at the companion device without outputting an audioindication of the incoming call at the primary device can enhance theuser's experience by not overwhelming the user with multiplenotification signals.

In some examples, the signal includes information regarding a caller ofthe incoming call. In some examples, in response to receiving thesignal, spoken dialogue containing the information regarding the calleris automatically outputted (e.g., using speech synthesis module 740 andvia speaker 211).

At block 1208, a user utterance is received (e.g., as represented byarrow 912 in FIG. 9). The user utterance is received at an I/OProcessing Module (e.g., I/O Processing Module 728) via a microphone(e.g., microphone 213) of the primary device. The user utteranceincludes, for example, spoken natural language representing a requestfor a device to perform a task. In some examples, the user utterance isambiguous regarding the device that the user wishes to perform the task.In some examples, the user utterance is ambiguous regarding the specifictask that the user wishes to be performed.

In some examples, the user utterance is received in conjunction withinvoking a digital assistant of the primary device. In these examplesblock 1208 includes determining whether a first portion of the userutterance contains a predefined spoken trigger (block 1210). Inaccordance with a determination that the first portion of the userutterance contains a predefined spoken trigger, a second portion of theuser utterance separate from the first portion is received (block 1212).In particular, process 1200 automatically processes the second portionof the user utterance to determine a user intent (e.g., using STTprocessing module 730 and natural language processing module 732).Alternatively, in accordance with a determination that the first portionof the user utterance does not contain a predefined spoken trigger,process 1200 ceases to process the user utterance and waits for asubsequent user utterance to be received.

At block 1214, process 1200 causes a server (e.g., DA server 106) todetermine, based on the user utterance and contextual information, auser intent corresponding to the user utterance (e.g., as represented byarrow 914 in FIG. 9). For example, a representation of the userutterance and the contextual information is sent to the server, whichcauses the server to determine a text representation of the userutterance (e.g., using STT processing module 730). Based on the textrepresentation and the contextual information, a user intent isdetermined (e.g., using natural language processing module 732). Inaccordance with the user intent corresponding to an actionable intent ofanswering the incoming call, the operations of blocks 1216-1220 areperformed.

In some examples, the contextual information is based on the signal ofblock 1206. For example, contextual information includes an operatingstate of the companion device. Specifically, the contextual informationspecifies that an incoming call is detected at the companion device. Insome examples, the contextual information specifies that a wirelesscommunication connection is established between the primary device andthe companion device and that the companion device is a registereddevice of the electronic device. In some examples, the contextualinformation specifies the capabilities of the companion device (e.g.,call functionality, email functionality, etc.).

At block 1216, a command is received from the server (e.g., asrepresented by arrow 916 of FIG. 9). The received command represents atask to satisfy the actionable intent of answering the incoming call. Insome examples, the command specifies the domain or actionable intentnode of the user intent. For example, the command specifies the “answercall” actionable intent node of the “telephony” super domaincorresponding to the determined user intent.

At block 1218, based on the command, instructions are provided to thecompanion device (e.g., as represented by arrow 916). The instructionsare provided, for example, via the established wireless communicationconnection of block 1204. The instructions cause the companion device toanswer the incoming call. In some examples, the instructions furthercause the companion device to relay audio data of the answered incomingcall to the primary device. In some examples, the instructions includethe command of block 1216.

In some examples, block 1218 includes determining whether the command isto be executed by the companion device. The determination is based on,for example, a set of rules, the actionable intent, and the contextualinformation. In these examples, the instructions are provided to thecompanion device in accordance with a determination that the command isto be executed by the companion device.

In some examples, the incoming call at the companion device is anincoming video call. In these example, the provided instructions causethe companion device to answer the incoming video call as an audio call.For example, video data is not exchanged between the primary device andthe companion device for the answered call.

At block 1220, in accordance with the instructions successfully causingthe companion device to answer the incoming call, audio output isproduced in accordance with the audio data of the answered incomingcall. For example, the primary device receives the audio data of theanswered incoming call from the companion device (e.g., represented byarrow 918 in FIG. 9) and generates corresponding audio output from aspeaker (e.g., speaker 211) of the primary device. The audio dataincludes, for example, speech data received at a microphone of anexternal device that initiated the call (e.g., the calling party).

At block 1222, a confirmation signal is received from the companiondevice (e.g., represented by arrow 922 in FIG. 9). The confirmationsignal indicates whether the incoming call was successfully answered. Inexamples where the incoming call was not successfully answered, theconfirmation signal indicates an error code representing the type oferror that occurred. In some examples, a representation of theconfirmation signal is provided to the server. In some examples, block1222 is performed after block 1218.

At block 1224, spoken dialogue prompting a user to return a call isoutputted (e.g., via a speaker of the primary device). The dialogue is,for example, generated by the server (e.g., DA server 106) based on theconfirmation signal. The primary device thus receives the dialogue fromthe server (e.g., as represented by arrow 924 in FIG. 9). In someexamples, block 1224 is performed in accordance with the incoming callending prior to the companion device executing the instructions toanswer the incoming call and in accordance with the incoming call havingcaller identification information. In some examples, the spoken dialogueincludes the caller identification information. For example, the spokendialogue prompts the user to place a call in accordance with the calleridentification information.

At block 1226, spoken dialogue indicating that the incoming call was notanswered is outputted. The spoken dialogue does not prompt a user toreturn a call. The dialogue is received, for example, from the server(e.g., as represented by arrow 924 in FIG. 9). For example, the servergenerates the spoken dialogue based on the confirmation signal. Block1226 is performed in accordance with the incoming call ending prior tothe companion device executing the instructions to answer the incomingcall and in accordance with the incoming call not having calleridentification information.

At block 1228, a second user utterance is received (e.g., as representedby arrow 1010 in FIG. 10). The second user utterance is received whilethe companion device is engaged in an active call. The active call isestablished, for example, as a result of the companion devicesuccessfully answering the incoming call in accordance with the providedinstructions (block 1218). In some examples, the second user utteranceis received while producing the audio output (e.g., at a speaker of theprimary device) in accordance with the audio data of the answeredincoming call (block 1220).

At block 1230, process 1200 causes the server (e.g., DA server 106) todetermine, based on the second user utterance and second contextualinformation, a second user intent corresponding to the second userutterance (e.g., as represented by arrow 1012 in FIG. 10). Block 1230 issimilar to block 1214. In some examples, the second contextualinformation contains similar information as the contextual informationof block 1214. In some examples, the second contextual informationfurther indicates that the companion device is engaged in an activecall. In some examples, upon determining the second user intent, theserver generates a second command representing a second task to satisfythe second user intent.

In some examples, in accordance with the second user intentcorresponding to an actionable intent other than controlling callfunctionality for the active call, process 1200 forgoes performing atask to satisfy the actionable intent other than controlling callfunctionality for the active call. For example, the server forgoesgenerating a second command to cause the primary device and/or companiondevice to satisfy the second user intent.

At block 1232, a second command representing a second task to satisfythe second user intent (e.g., as represented by arrow 1014 in FIG. 10)is received from the server. Block 1232 is similar to block 1216. Insome examples, the second command specifies the domain or actionableintent node of the second user intent. For example, in accordance withthe second user intent corresponding to the actionable intent ofterminating the active call, the second command specifies the “terminatecall” actionable intent node of the “telephony” super domain. In thisexample, the second task includes one or more tasks that satisfy theactionable intent of terminating the active call.

In another example, in accordance with the second user intentcorresponding to the actionable intent of transmitting DTMF tones on theactive call, the second command specifies the “transmit DTMF tone”actionable intent node of the “telephony” super domain. The secondcommand also specifies, for example, one or more character keys of atelephone keypad. The specified one or more character keys correspondto, for example, one or more character keys defined in the second userutterance. In this example, the second task includes one or more tasksthat satisfy the actionable intent of transmitting DTMF tones on theactive call.

At block 1232, based on the second command, process 1200 causes thecompanion device to perform the second task to satisfy the second userintent. For example, second instructions are provided to the companiondevice based on the second command (e.g., as represented by arrow 1016in FIG. 10). In some examples, the second instructions include thesecond command. The second instructions, when received and executed bythe companion device, cause the companion device to perform the secondtask to satisfy the second user intent.

In some examples, in accordance with the second user intentcorresponding to the actionable intent of terminating the active call,the second instructions cause the companion device to perform the secondtask of terminating the active call. In some examples, the secondcommand of block 1232 is executed by the primary device, which in turn,causes the companion device to terminate the active call. For example,the primary device ceases to received audio data of the active call fromthe companion device, which causes the companion device to terminate theactive call. Alternatively, the primary device sends a signal to thecompanion device which, when received by the companion device, causesthe companion device to terminate the active call. The signal is, forexample, different from the second command. Executing the second commandat the primary device rather than the companion device can be desirablebecause it produces a quicker response from the perspective of the user.In addition, the primary device can be more quickly freed up to engagein a subsequent call with the companion device or a different companiondevice.

In other examples, in accordance with the second user intentcorresponding to the actionable intent of transmitting DTMF tones on theactive call, the second instructions cause the companion device toperform the second task of transmitting, on the active call, one or moreDTMF tones corresponding to the one or more character keys specified inthe second command (and defined in the second user utterance).

The operations described above with reference to FIGS. 12A-12B areoptionally implemented by components depicted in FIGS. 1-4, 6A-B, and7A-C. For example, the operations of process 1200 are implemented bycommunication module 228, RF circuitry 208, telephone module 238, and/orvideo conference module 239. The operations of process 1200 are furtherimplemented by digital assistant module 726 (e.g., implemented in DAserver 106 and DA client module 229), including I/O processing module728, STT processing module 730, natural language processing module 732,dialogue flow processing module 734, task flow processing module 736,and service processing module 738, and/or speech synthesis processingmodule 738. It would be clear to a person having ordinary skill in theart how other processes are implemented based on the components depictedin FIGS. 1-4, 6A-6B, and 7A-7C.

In accordance with some implementations, a computer-readable storagemedium (e.g., a non-transitory computer readable storage medium) isprovided, the computer-readable storage medium storing one or moreprograms for execution by one or more processors of an electronicdevice, the one or more programs including instructions for performingany of the methods or processes described herein.

In accordance with some implementations, an electronic device (e.g., aportable electronic device) is provided that comprises means forperforming any of the methods or processes described herein.

In accordance with some implementations, an electronic device (e.g., aportable electronic device) is provided that comprises a processing unitconfigured to perform any of the methods or processes described herein.

In accordance with some implementations, an electronic device (e.g., aportable electronic device) is provided that comprises one or moreprocessors and memory storing one or more programs for execution by theone or more processors, the one or more programs including instructionsfor performing any of the methods or processes described herein.

Certain aspects of the present technology can include the gathering anduse of data available from various sources to improve accuratedetermination of user intent and enable efficient and robust access ofcall functionality using voice interaction. The present disclosurecontemplates that in some instances, this gathered data may includepersonal information data that uniquely identifies or can be used tocontact or locate a specific person. Such personal information data caninclude demographic data, location-based data, telephone numbers, emailaddresses, twitter IDs, home addresses, data or records relating to auser's health or level of fitness (e.g., vital signs measurements,medication information, exercise information), date of birth, or anyother identifying or personal information.

The present disclosure recognizes that the use of such personalinformation data, in the present technology, can be used to the benefitof users. For example, the personal information data can be used todetermine user intent more accurately and reliably. Accordingly, use ofsuch personal information data enables user to access call functionalityusing voice interaction more accurately and reliably. Further, otheruses for personal information data that benefit the user are alsocontemplated by the present disclosure. For instance, health and fitnessdata may be used to provide insights into a user's general wellness, ormay be used as positive feedback to individuals using technology topursue wellness goals.

The present disclosure contemplates that the entities responsible forthe collection, analysis, disclosure, transfer, storage, or other use ofsuch personal information data will comply with well-established privacypolicies and/or privacy practices. In particular, such entities shouldimplement and consistently use privacy policies and practices that aregenerally recognized as meeting or exceeding industry or governmentalrequirements for maintaining personal information data private andsecure. Such policies should be easily accessible by users, and shouldbe updated as the collection and/or use of data changes. Personalinformation from users should be collected for legitimate and reasonableuses of the entity and not shared or sold outside of those legitimateuses. Further, such collection/sharing should occur after receiving theinformed consent of the users. Additionally, such entities shouldconsider taking any needed steps for safeguarding and securing access tosuch personal information data and ensuring that others with access tothe personal information data adhere to their privacy policies andprocedures. Further, such entities can subject themselves to evaluationby third parties to certify their adherence to widely accepted privacypolicies and practices. In addition, policies and practices should beadapted for the particular types of personal information data beingcollected and/or accessed and adapted to applicable laws and standards,including jurisdiction-specific considerations. For instance, in the US,collection of or access to certain health data may be governed byfederal and/or state laws, such as the Health Insurance Portability andAccountability Act (HIPAA); whereas health data in other countries maybe subject to other regulations and policies and should be handledaccordingly. Hence different privacy practices should be maintained fordifferent personal data types in each country.

Despite the foregoing, the present disclosure also contemplatesembodiments in which users selectively block the use of, or access to,personal information data. That is, the present disclosure contemplatesthat hardware and/or software elements can be provided to prevent orblock access to such personal information data. For example, in the caseof digital assistants, the present technology can be configured to allowusers to select to “opt in” or “opt out” of participation in thecollection of personal information data during registration for servicesor anytime thereafter. In addition to providing “opt in” and “opt out”options, the present disclosure contemplates providing notificationsrelating to the access or use of personal information. For instance, auser may be notified upon downloading an app that their personalinformation data will be accessed and then reminded again just beforepersonal information data is accessed by the app.

Moreover, it is the intent of the present disclosure that personalinformation data should be managed and handled in a way to minimizerisks of unintentional or unauthorized access or use. Risk can beminimized by limiting the collection of data and deleting data once itis no longer needed. In addition, and when applicable, including incertain health related applications, data de-identification can be usedto protect a user's privacy. De-identification may be facilitated, whenappropriate, by removing specific identifiers (e.g., date of birth,etc.), controlling the amount or specificity of data stored (e.g.,collecting location data at a city level rather than at an addresslevel), controlling how data is stored (e.g., aggregating data acrossusers), and/or other methods.

Therefore, although the present disclosure broadly covers use ofpersonal information data to implement one or more various disclosedembodiments, the present disclosure also contemplates that the variousembodiments can also be implemented without the need for accessing suchpersonal information data. That is, the various embodiments of thepresent technology are not rendered inoperable due to the lack of all ora portion of such personal information data. For example, user intentcan be determined based on non-personal information data or a bareminimum amount of personal information, such as the content beingrequested by the device associated with a user, other non-personalinformation available to the digital assistant, or publicly availableinformation.

The foregoing description, for purpose of explanation, has beendescribed with reference to specific embodiments. However, theillustrative discussions above are not intended to be exhaustive or tolimit the invention to the precise forms disclosed. Many modificationsand variations are possible in view of the above teachings. Theembodiments were chosen and described in order to best explain theprinciples of the techniques and their practical applications. Othersskilled in the art are thereby enabled to best utilize the techniquesand various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to theparticular use contemplated.

Although the disclosure and examples have been fully described withreference to the accompanying drawings, it is to be noted that variouschanges and modifications will become apparent to those skilled in theart. Such changes and modifications are to be understood as beingincluded within the scope of the disclosure and examples as defined bythe claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A non-transitory computer-readable storage mediumstoring one or more programs, the one or more programs comprisinginstructions, which when executed by one or more processors of anelectronic device with a speaker, cause the electronic device to:receive a user utterance representing a request for call-relatedinformation stored on a companion device; cause a server to determine,based on the user utterance, a user intent of providing call-relatedinformation; receive, from the server, a command representing a task tosatisfy the user intent of providing call-related information;determine, based on the command and contextual information, that thecompanion device is to execute the command; in accordance with adetermination that the companion device is to execute the command,provide instructions to the companion device to retrieve thecall-related information and send the call-related information to theelectronic device; and in accordance with the instructions successfullycausing the companion device to retrieve and send the call-relatedinformation to the electronic device, provide an audio output at thespeaker, wherein the audio output includes the call-related informationreceived from the companion device.
 2. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the call-relatedinformation comprises information stored on the companion device basedon one or more calls received by the companion device prior to theelectronic device receiving the user utterance.
 3. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the call-relatedinformation comprises a voicemail audio file stored on the companiondevice, and wherein the voicemail audio file comprises call informationfor a voicemail and an audio recording of the voicemail.
 4. Thenon-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 3, wherein theaudio output at the speaker comprises a first spoken dialogue and theaudio recording of the voicemail, and wherein the first spoken dialoguecomprises the call information for the voicemail.
 5. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium of claim 4, wherein the one or moreprograms comprise further instructions, which when executed by the oneor more processors of the electronic device, cause the electronic deviceto: after receiving the call-related information at the electronicdevice and prior to providing the audio output at the speaker: send, tothe server, a representation of the call information for the voicemail;and receive, from the server, the first spoken dialogue comprising thecall information.
 6. The non-transitory computer-readable storage mediumof claim 1, wherein the call-related information comprises callerinformation stored on the companion device for one or more missed calls.7. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 6,wherein the audio output at the speaker comprises a second spokendialogue, and wherein the second spoken dialogue comprises the callerinformation corresponding to the one or more missed calls.
 8. Thenon-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein thecommand specifies an actionable intent node corresponding to the userintent, and wherein the instructions include the command.
 9. Thenon-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein thecontextual information indicates that the companion device has telephonecapabilities.
 10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium ofclaim 1, wherein the one or more programs comprise further instructions,which when executed by the one or more processors of the electronicdevice, cause the electronic device to: prior to receiving the userutterance, exchange authentication information with the companiondevice; and in accordance with a determination, based on theauthentication information, that the companion device is a registereddevice of the electronic device, establish a wireless communicationconnection with the companion device, wherein the instructions areprovided via the established wireless communication connection, andwherein the call-related information is received via the establishedwireless communication connection.
 11. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein the contextualinformation indicates that the wireless communication connection isestablished between the electronic device and the companion device andthat the companion device is a registered device of the electronicdevice.
 12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim1, wherein the one or more programs comprise further instructions, whichwhen executed by the one or more processors of the electronic device,cause the electronic device to: after providing the instructions to thecompanion device, receive a confirmation signal from the companiondevice, wherein the confirmation signal indicates whether thecall-related information was successfully retrieved; and provide arepresentation of the confirmation signal to the server.
 13. Thenon-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein theone or more programs comprise further instructions, which when executedby the one or more processors of the electronic device, cause theelectronic device to: determine whether a first portion of the userutterance contains a predefined spoken trigger; and in accordance with adetermination that the first portion of the user utterance contains apredefined spoken trigger, receive a second portion of the userutterance separate from the first portion, wherein the user intent isdetermined from the second portion of the user utterance.
 14. Anelectronic device, comprising: a speaker; one or more processors; andmemory storing one or more programs configured to be executed by the oneor more processors, the one or more programs including instructions for:receiving a user utterance representing a request for call-relatedinformation stored on a companion device; causing a server to determine,based on the user utterance, a user intent of providing call-relatedinformation; receiving, from the server, a command representing a taskto satisfy the user intent of providing call-related information;determining, based on the command and contextual information, that thecompanion device is to execute the command; in accordance with adetermination that the companion device is to execute the command,providing instructions to the companion device to retrieve thecall-related information and send the call-related information to theelectronic device; and in accordance with the instructions successfullycausing the companion device to retrieve and send the call-relatedinformation to the electronic device, providing an audio output at thespeaker, wherein the audio output includes the call-related informationreceived from the companion device.
 15. A method for using voiceinteraction to access call-related information of a companion device,the method comprising: at an electronic device having a processor,memory, and a speaker: receiving a user utterance representing a requestfor call-related information stored on the companion device; causing aserver to determine, based on the user utterance, a user intent ofproviding call-related information; receiving, from the server, acommand representing a task to satisfy the user intent of providingcall-related information; determining, based on the command andcontextual information, that the companion device is to execute thecommand; in accordance with a determination that the companion device isto execute the command, providing instructions to the companion deviceto retrieve the call-related information and send the call-relatedinformation to the electronic device; and in accordance with theinstructions successfully causing the companion device to retrieve andsend the call-related information to the electronic device, providing anaudio output at the speaker, wherein the audio output includes thecall-related information received from the companion device.
 16. Theelectronic device of claim 14, wherein the call-related informationcomprises information stored on the companion device based on one ormore calls received by the companion device prior to the electronicdevice receiving the user utterance.
 17. The electronic device of claim14, wherein the call-related information comprises a voicemail audiofile stored on the companion device, and wherein the voicemail audiofile comprises call information for a voicemail and an audio recordingof the voicemail.
 18. The electronic device of claim 17, wherein theaudio output at the speaker comprises a first spoken dialogue and theaudio recording of the voicemail, and wherein the first spoken dialoguecomprises the call information for the voicemail.
 19. The electronicdevice of claim 18, wherein the one or more programs further includeinstructions for: after receiving the call-related information at theelectronic device and prior to providing the audio output at thespeaker: sending, to the server, a representation of the callinformation for the voicemail; and receiving, from the server, the firstspoken dialogue comprising the call information.
 20. The electronicdevice of claim 14, wherein the call-related information comprisescaller information stored on the companion device for one or more missedcalls.
 21. The electronic device of claim 20, wherein the audio outputat the speaker comprises a second spoken dialogue, and wherein thesecond spoken dialogue comprises the caller information corresponding tothe one or more missed calls.
 22. The electronic device of claim 14,wherein the command specifies an actionable intent node corresponding tothe user intent, and wherein the instructions include the command. 23.The electronic device of claim 14, wherein the contextual informationindicates that the companion device has telephone capabilities.
 24. Theelectronic device of claim 14, wherein the one or more programs furtherinclude instructions for: prior to receiving the user utterance,exchanging authentication information with the companion device; and inaccordance with a determination, based on the authenticationinformation, that the companion device is a registered device of theelectronic device, establishing a wireless communication connection withthe companion device, wherein the instructions are provided via theestablished wireless communication connection, and wherein thecall-related information is received via the established wirelesscommunication connection.
 25. The electronic device of claim 24, whereinthe contextual information indicates that the wireless communicationconnection is established between the electronic device and thecompanion device and that the companion device is a registered device ofthe electronic device.
 26. The electronic device of claim 14, whereinthe one or more programs further include instructions for: afterproviding the instructions to the companion device, receiving aconfirmation signal from the companion device, wherein the confirmationsignal indicates whether the call-related information was successfullyretrieved; and providing a representation of the confirmation signal tothe server.
 27. The electronic device of claim 14, wherein the one ormore programs further include instructions for: determining whether afirst portion of the user utterance contains a predefined spokentrigger; and in accordance with a determination that the first portionof the user utterance contains a predefined spoken trigger, receiving asecond portion of the user utterance separate from the first portion,wherein the user intent is determined from the second portion of theuser utterance.
 28. The method of claim 15, wherein the call-relatedinformation comprises information stored on the companion device basedon one or more calls received by the companion device prior to theelectronic device receiving the user utterance.
 29. The method of claim15, wherein the call-related information comprises a voicemail audiofile stored on the companion device, and wherein the voicemail audiofile comprises call information for a voicemail and an audio recordingof the voicemail.
 30. The method of claim 29, wherein the audio outputat the speaker comprises a first spoken dialogue and the audio recordingof the voicemail, and wherein the first spoken dialogue comprises thecall information for the voicemail.
 31. The method of claim 30, furthercomprising: after receiving the call-related information at theelectronic device and prior to providing the audio output at thespeaker: sending, to the server, a representation of the callinformation for the voicemail; and receiving, from the server, the firstspoken dialogue comprising the call information.
 32. The method of claim15, wherein the call-related information comprises caller informationstored on the companion device for one or more missed calls.
 33. Themethod of claim 32, wherein the audio output at the speaker comprises asecond spoken dialogue, and wherein the second spoken dialogue comprisesthe caller information corresponding to the one or more missed calls.34. The method of claim 15, wherein the command specifies an actionableintent node corresponding to the user intent, and wherein theinstructions include the command.
 35. The method of claim 15, whereinthe contextual information indicates that the companion device hastelephone capabilities.
 36. The method of claim 15, further comprising:prior to receiving the user utterance, exchanging authenticationinformation with the companion device; and in accordance with adetermination, based on the authentication information, that thecompanion device is a registered device of the electronic device,establishing a wireless communication connection with the companiondevice, wherein the instructions are provided via the establishedwireless communication connection, and wherein the call-relatedinformation is received via the established wireless communicationconnection.
 37. The method of claim 36, wherein the contextualinformation indicates that the wireless communication connection isestablished between the electronic device and the companion device andthat the companion device is a registered device of the electronicdevice.
 38. The method of claim 15, further comprising: after providingthe instructions to the companion device, receiving a confirmationsignal from the companion device, wherein the confirmation signalindicates whether the call-related information was successfullyretrieved; and providing a representation of the confirmation signal tothe server.
 39. The method of claim 15, further comprising: determiningwhether a first portion of the user utterance contains a predefinedspoken trigger; and in accordance with a determination that the firstportion of the user utterance contains a predefined spoken trigger,receiving a second portion of the user utterance separate from the firstportion, wherein the user intent is determined from the second portionof the user utterance.